U.S. Supreme Court to hear challenge over Haiti TPS termination in April

Hours after Haitian immigrants challenging the potential termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) warned that deportations could return them to a country engulfed in violence and instability, the United States Supreme Court announced it will hear oral arguments in the case in April.

In early Monday filings, attorneys representing Haitian TPS holders urged the justices to reject the government’s emergency request to end the program while their lawsuit continues. They argued that deporting beneficiaries now could expose them to serious harm in Haiti’s worsening humanitarian conditions.

Haitian TPS holders fighting to keep their legal protections told the court that deportation could send them back into a country gripped by extreme violence and instability. Hours later, the justices issued an unsigned order stating they would hear arguments in the case rather than grant the Trump administration’s emergency request to terminate TPS for Haiti.

In the filings, attorneys argued that forcing the estimated 350,000 Haitian immigrants enrolled in the program to return home could put their lives at risk. Lawyers in Miot v. Trump, the 2025 lawsuit seeking to preserve TPS for Haitians, said deportations could place individuals directly in the path of a humanitarian crisis driven by gang violence and political collapse.

They described Haiti as “a maelstrom of disease, poverty, violence (including sexual violence) and death,” noting that armed gangs now control large portions of the capital and have displaced more than one million people.

“The government identifies no emergency requiring their immediate expulsion,” their March 16 brief states. “Because they are important and complex, the questions presented are best decided in the normal course after the court of appeals has addressed them.

“The Court should therefore deny the government’s application for certiorari before judgment [and] should deny the government’s application in full.”

Later that afternoon, the Supreme Court said it would take up the case and consolidate it with a similar challenge involving Syria’s TPS designation. The court’s decision leaves in place lower court rulings that have temporarily preserved protections for both groups.

Arguments are scheduled for the second week of the Court’s April 2026 session, with a decision expected before the end of the term in May or June.

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More than 352,000 Haitians currently live and work in the United States under TPS, which allows nationals of countries facing extraordinary conditions to remain temporarily and obtain work authorization.

Haiti was first designated for TPS in 2010 following a devastating earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people. The designation has been extended repeatedly amid ongoing political instability, natural disasters and escalating gang violence.

In November, however, the Department of Homeland Security announced plans to terminate Haiti’s TPS designation effective February 3, even as legal challenges remained ongoing. Lower courts reviewing the case have acknowledged the potential consequences, including the “risk of detention and deportation, separation from family members, and loss of work authorization.”