Longtime U.S. Supreme Court watchers adept at picking up the leanings of the justices, this week said it does not look good for the Haitians in this country under the disputed Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program. This interests long-term care providers since large numbers of potentially impacted Haitians work in the sector.

The court is hearing arguments in Mullin v. Doe and Trump v. Miot.

A number of articles, led by NPR’s Nina Totenberg, said the arguments in court favored the Trump Administration’s attempt to potentially mass deport some 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians as it seeks to end TPS.

Despite sometimes pointed attacks on the administration’s arguments by the court’s three liberal justices, Totenberg said, “At the end of Wednesday's court session, one thing was clear: President Trump may be furious at some of the conservative justices he appointed for invalidating his tariffs, but for the most part, he is getting his way.” She pointed to the court’s conservative majority’s backing of the hollowing out of the Voting Rights Act in a separate case this week, for example.

What Trump Wants

The Trump Administration had asked the Supreme Court to give it emergency relief from the U.S. Justice Dept. in order to end temporary deportation protections for the Syrians and Haitians. The much larger cohort of people from Haiti have a large worker presence in skilled nursing and related healthcare settings in states like Florida and Massachusetts.

Haitians were first granted TPS in 2010 because of a tragic earthquake and its aftermath. When elected for the first time, President Trump tried to end protections for Haitians but was unable to do so before his term ended amid a court battle.

The TPS cases that are being considered now by the Supreme Court came after the Trump Administration lost a key decision in a lower court when a federal judge in February handed a legal victory to the Haitians, blocking a decision last fall by the Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) to terminate the designation of TPS for Haiti, effective Feb. 3, 2026.

The DHS termination is now blocked nationwide because of the Feb. 2 decision by U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, who granted a stay maintaining the legal status of Haitian nationals "pending judicial review." Reyes is a federal judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. She ruled that the Trump Administration’s efforts to strip the TPS designation for Haitians as unlawful.

A decision by the Supreme Court is expected in early summer.

Comments or questions? Contact Patrick Connole at pconnole@parkplacelive.com.