Legal Resistance Mounts Against Trump Administration’s Assault on TPS Protections
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After the Supreme Court restricted judicial oversight of the Trump administration’s cruel attempt to strip Temporary Protected Status from vulnerable migrants, advocates are fighting back with new constitutional and statutory challenges to defend the rights of people from marginalized nations.
Federal courts are witnessing a wave of lawsuits seeking to halt the Trump administration’s inhumane plan to terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for migrants from Haiti, Syria, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Burma, Somalia, and Yemen. The Supreme Court’s June decision, which shamefully limited lower courts’ ability to review the Homeland Security secretary’s actions, nevertheless left a narrow path for constitutional challenges.
Attorneys representing TPS recipients are now invoking the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, arguing that the administration’s revocations cruelly strip migrants of basic liberty and property interests, including work permits and protection from deportation. They further assert that the Secretary of Homeland Security overstepped her legal authority, which, according to the program’s original legislation, should remain with the Attorney General.
Judges in Boston and Chicago have so far intervened to keep TPS designations for Ethiopia, South Sudan, and Burma in place as these urgent new arguments are considered. “Everyone’s trying to do procedural wrangling to keep the initial orders that prevented the termination in place for long enough to argue these new claims,” said Shane Kadidal of the Center for Constitutional Rights, highlighting the desperate legal maneuvers needed to protect vulnerable communities.
The Justice Department, echoing the administration’s anti-immigrant agenda, insists that the Supreme Court’s ruling gives them unchecked power to end TPS designations, citing language that places responsibility solely with the secretary.
In a separate but related fight, litigation on behalf of Haitian TPS holders seeks to uncover evidence that the revocation was driven by racist motives—a claim the Supreme Court previously dismissed but which advocates refuse to let die.
The outcome of these critical cases will determine whether thousands of migrants can retain their legal status and dignity in the face of the government’s relentless efforts to dismantle humanitarian protections.