A group of Haitian citizens who are beneficiaries of a program that allows them to stay in the United States came to the Supreme Court on Tuesday, asking the justices to throw out a dispute over whether the Trump administration can end the program, known as Temporary Protected Status, for Haiti. The justices heard oral arguments in the case in late April, but the Haitian citizens told the court on Tuesday that it should toss the case without deciding it – a procedure known as “dismiss as improvidently granted” – based on “newly discovered facts [that] bear directly on the merits of” their claims. In particular, the Haitians contended, a July 1 notice by then-Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem of her intent to end the TPS program for Haiti “relied on a knowingly false statement.”
Congress enacted the Temporary Protected Status program in 1990. The program gives the Department of Homeland Security the power to designate a country’s citizens as eligible to remain in the U.S. and work if they cannot return safely to their own country because of a natural disaster, armed conflict, or other “extraordinary and temporary” conditions there. In 2010, shortly after a powerful earthquake struck the country, causing extensive damage and hundreds of thousands of deaths, Janet Napolitano – then the DHS secretary – designated Haiti under the TPS program. The designation initially lasted for 18 months but was repeatedly re-extended until 2025.
After Noem announced that the Trump administration planned to end Haiti’s TPS designation, a group of Haitian nationals in the United States went to federal court in Washington, D.C., where they argued both that the decision to end the TPS designation violated the federal law governing administrative agencies and that it violated the Constitution because it was intended to discriminate against them based on their race.
The lower courts ruled in favor of the Haitian nationals and barred the government from ending the program while their challenge continued. The Trump administration then went to the Supreme Court, asking the justices to pause both that ruling and a similar one in favor of Syrian nationals. The justices temporarily left the lower court orders in place, but they agreed to take up both cases and heard arguments on April 29.
The Haitian nationals on Tuesday asked the justices to dismiss their case without ruling on it, pointing to “new facts” that they said show that “the termination of Haiti’s TPS designation was a preordained outcome motivated by discriminatory” intent. They told the justices that they had obtained new documents from the government indicating that Noem’s July 1 notice terminating the TPS program for Haiti “relied on a knowingly false statement—namely, the assertion that” Noem “had consulted with the Department of State when in fact she had not.” Moreover, they added, the documents show that the July 1 notice “was based on an unprecedented rationale” for ending Haiti’s TPS status – the U.S. national interest – and was “published only after a political appointee issued an unusual eleventh-hour verbal directive instructing career officials to abandon their recommendation that Haiti’s TPS designation be extended.” These additional facts could, if true, bolster the Haitian nationals’ argument that Noem’s decision to end the TPS program for Haiti had not complied with the federal law governing administrative agencies – for example, because Noem had not followed the procedures required by law and because she had not provided an adequate explanation for her decision.
Because the facts of the case continue to unfold, the Haitian nationals argued, the court should not now decide whether they “are likely to succeed on the merits of their claims.” Instead, they wrote, the court should send the case back so that the lower courts can issue a final decision on the merits after all of the fact-finding has been completed.
The motion to dismiss the case applies only to the challenge by Haitian nationals; even if the court were to grant it, it would not necessarily affect the justices’ ability to rule on the case involving Syrian nationals.
Recommended Citation: Amy Howe, Haitian citizens ask justices to throw out dispute over whether Trump administration properly ended protected status for them, SCOTUSblog (Jun. 16, 2026, 6:04 PM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/06/haitian-citizens-ask-justices-to-throw-out-dispute-over-whether-trump-administration-properly-en/
