The case will be heard in April, a fast schedule for the nation's highest court, with a decision expected weeks or months later.
The conservative-majority court has sided with the Trump administration on the issue before and allowed the end of temporary legal status for a total of 600,000 people from Venezuela while lawsuits play out, exposing them to potential deportation. The court did not explain its legal reasoning, as is common on its emergency docket.
The Trump administration filed emergency appeals after lower courts stopped the immediate end of the program for 350,000 people from Haiti and 6,000 people from Syria.
The administration asked the court to lift those decisions, hear arguments and issue a broad ruling that would block courts from intervening when Homeland Security decides to end protections.
The Justice Department argued that the Department of Homeland Security has sole power over the program, which was designed to be temporary.
“Lower courts are again attempting to block major executive-branch policy initiatives in ways that inflict specific harms to the national interest and foreign relations,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in court documents.
But immigration attorneys argued that both countries are still largely in crisis and people can't return safely.
“Without a functioning government, Haiti is a nation in turmoil. Rape, kidnapping, and murder are rampant, while food, housing, and medical care are scarce,” attorneys wrote, pointing to reports that four Haitian women were recently found dead months after they were deported from the U.S.
Lupe Aguirre, director of the International Refugee Assistance Project, said Syrians are relieved they will stay protected for now, but disappointed the court agreed to hear the case before it has fully worked its way through lower courts.
Courts in New York and Washington, D.C., have agreed to delay the end of protections, with one finding that “hostility to nonwhite immigrants” likely played a role in the decision to end protections for Haitians. During his presidential campaign, Trump amplified false rumors that Haitian immigrants were abducting and eating dogs and cats.
Appeals courts left the decisions in place.
A total of about 1.3 million people fleeing armed conflict, natural disasters and political instability in countries around the world have been granted temporary protected status. Federal authorities have said conditions in the affected countries have improved and denied racial animus played any role.
The protections for Haitians were first granted in 2010 after a catastrophic earthquake and have been extended multiple times amid ongoing gang violence that has displaced more than a million people, according to court documents.
Protections for Syrians were first granted protected status in 2012, during a civil war that lasted for more than a decade before the fall of President Bashar Assad’s government in late 2024.
Congress created TPS in 1990 to prevent deportations to countries suffering from natural disasters, civil strife or other dangerous conditions. The designation is granted in 18-month increments by the Homeland Security secretary.
It allows people to legally live and work in the U.S., though it does not provide a path to citizenship. DHS has moved to terminate the program for people from multiple countries since Republican Donald Trump returned to the White House.