Outrange builds over Supreme Court’s termination of TPS for Haitians

Democratic Congressman Gregory Meeks on Friday, June 27, joined his Democratic colleagues in expressing profound outrage over what has been described as “shameful” the United States Supreme Court’s termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for hundreds of Haitians and Syrians living in the US.

A wide array of legislators and immigration advocates on June 26 had strongly condemned the court’s decision. 

In denouncing the court’s decision on the Capitol steps in Washington, D.C. Meeks, who represents the Fifth Congressional District in Queens, said Haiti and Syria are still “dangerous, and these families deserve safety and the opportunity to legally contribute to our economy. 

“Haitians are an essential part of the Southeast Queens community,” said Meeks, a member of the US House of Representatives’ Committee on Foreign Affairs. “They are our neighbors, coworkers, caregivers, small business owners, faith leaders, students and service members. 

Meeks will become the dean of New York’s House delegation on the retirements of his Democratic colleagues Jerry Nadler and Nydia Velázquez at the end of the year. 

“America is strongest when we stand for humanity,” added Meeks, whose district, including most of southeastern Queens, comprises largely economically diverse African-American and Caribbean communities. 

In the court’s 6-3 majority decision on Thursday, along ideological lines, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote that the federal law at issue is unequivocal.

“This text is clear, and its plain meaning is very broad,” he wrote, dismissing claims that the Trump administration’s decision was based on anti-Black and anti-Haitian biases and discrimination.

He claimed that statements made by Trump and his administration were not “overtly racial,” and that, “in substance, all expressed policy views could rest on race-neutral justifications.”

But writing for the three dissenting justices, Justice Sonia Sotomayor pointed to Trump’s derogatory and disparaging statements about Haitians.

“The statements fairly shout, in their racial undertones and overtones alike, that race entered into the president’s resolve to remove Haitians from this country,” she wrote, lamenting that the Supreme Court clearly gave Trump a blank check to “slam the door shut on all who are fleeing persecution,” despite congressional legislation to aid asylum seekers in the US.

New York City Council Member Mercedes Narcisse, who was born in Haiti, said she “cannot safely return to it right now. 

“Yet the Supreme Court just cleared the way to deport 350,000 Haitians back to a country our own State Department calls too dangerous to visit,” said the representative for the 46th Council District in Brooklyn, flanked by fellow New York State and City elected officials and members of the labor union 1199SEIU, at a rally in lower Manhattan.

“No one should be deported to their death,” Narcisse added. “Extend TPS and create a pathway to permanent residency.”  

Josue “Josh” Pierre, a Haitian-born Democratic District Leader in Flatbush, Brooklyn, said the Supreme Court’s decision is “deeply personal. 

“It creates uncertainty for families who have lived, worked, and contributed to our communities for years while continuing to support loved ones in countries facing political instability, violence, and humanitarian crises,” he told Caribbean Life, stating that he stands with the Haitian community and every family impacted by the court’s decision.

“Together, we must continue to organize, advocate, and stand up for policies that reflect both justice and our shared humanity,” Pierre added. 

The Washington, D.C.-based Legal Defense Fund (LDF) said the US Supreme Court has allowed the Trump administration to “selectively end legal immigration status and begin deporting over 350,000 Haitian nationals living in the United States.  

“Remarkably, the court said of the Trump administration’s hateful rhetoric toward Haitians, ‘none of the cited statements by either the President or the Secretary was overtly racial, and in substance all expressed policy views that could rest on race-neutral justifications,’” LDF said. 

“The Trump administration’s racist rhetoric included asserting that Haitian’s are ‘poisoning the blood’ of America, calling Haiti a “shithole country,” and accusing Haitians of ‘probably hav[ing] AIDS’ and ‘eating the pets of the people’ that live in Springfield, Ohio,” it added. 

LDF noted that the case, Trump v. Miot, came to the Supreme Court after the US District Court for the District Columbia stopped the Trump administration from terminating Haiti’s TPS designation, and the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit declined to pause that ruling. 

LDF said TPS allows people from countries experiencing armed conflict, natural disaster, or other humanitarian crises to live and work in the United States as lawful residents. 

“All Black people in our country, including immigrants, are entitled to equal protection under the law,” said Brittany Carter, assistant counsel at LDF. “Yet, the Supreme Court’s decision fails to honor this principle by allowing the Trump administration’s racially discriminatory termination of Haiti’s TPS to move forward. 

“We strongly and unequivocally condemn this decision,” she added, stating that LDF stands in solidarity with the hundreds of thousands of Haitians and other TPS recipients impacted by the court’s decision. 

Jennifer A. Holmes, deputy director of Litigation at LDF, said the US Supreme Court’s decision “puts hundreds of thousands of Haitians in danger of being deported to a dangerous environment against their will and against this country’s promise of equal protection for all.

“We are deeply disappointed in this callous opinion from the Supreme Court,” she added. 

 Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the largest and oldest civil rights organization in the United States, said the court’s ruling is “a devastating betrayal of Haitian families who have lived, worked, and contributed to this country for years – only to be cast out based on anti-Black immigration sentiment.

“The Supreme Court has given the green light to deport over 350,000 people, jeopardizing their safety, all while ignoring clear equal protection principles,” Johnson said. “It’s a shame that this is the America we’ve come to be.”  

In April 2026, LDF and the NAACP filed an amicus brief in the US Supreme Court, urging the justices to uphold a lower court decision blocking the Trump administration from deporting over 350,000 Haitians living in the United States due to unsafe conditions in Haiti. 

The NAACP said Haitian TPS holders alone add nearly US$6 billion to the economy every year and fill essential jobs in health care, agriculture, and manufacturing.

It warned that an estimated 25,000 US citizen children will be pushed into poverty if their parents lose the right to work.