Haiti TPS holders alert justices to documents that ‘undercut’ Trump bid to end protections

The Supreme Courtwill hear arguments later this month on the Trump administration’squest to end humanitarian immigration protections for Haitians and Syrians, in a case that could affect immigrants from many countries. Ahead of the hearing, lawyers challenging the administration alerted the justices to evidence they say undercuts the government’s position.

On Thursday, they filed a letterregarding evidence produced by the government in discovery, namely three documents that, the plaintiffs wrote to the high court, “undercut the Government’s stated rationale for the termination” of the humanitarian relief at issue, called Temporary Protected Status.

The first document is a September 2025 email in which a researcher at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services wrote that her supervisor was “forcing” her “to include a section” in a Haiti report “on how TPS is a pull factor” for unlawful migration. The researcher wrote that she would do so if they “had any empirical evidence to support that claim,” but they didn’t. She wrote that she was “obeying” her supervisor’s “command” but that she wanted to “go on record” that she was “concerned” about “making such claims without empirical support.”

Another document is an email sent by the same USCIS researcher the following month that said there were no known or suspected terrorist “hits for Haiti,” and said that claim was removed from their analysis because it didn’t support “the termination argument.”

A third document referenced in the letter is an email from a different USCIS employee that said “DHS data” showed that “0.06%” of the Haiti TPS population had “public safety records” and that none were associated with known or suspected terrorist records.

The justices agreed last monthto consider the issue that has been litigated regarding TPS protections for people from several countries, in addition to Haiti and Syria. In a series of cases, lower courts have rejected termination decisions made by Kristi Noemwhen she was the head of the Department of Homeland Security. In response, the Trump administration launched urgent appeals to the justices, complaining that lower court judges have been unlawfully second-guessing government decisions. The justices agreed to review the issue jointly in the Haiti and Syria cases, but in doing so, the high court kept the lower court rulings in favor of the protections in place for now.

Oral argument is set for April 29and a ruling is expected later in the spring or early summer, when the justices issue the final decisions in cases argued this term.

In the Haiti litigation, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, a Biden appointee, wrote that Noem, who was since replaced as Homeland Security chief by Markwayne Mullin, “has a First Amendment right to call immigrants killers, leeches, entitlement junkies, and any other inapt name she wants,” but that, as DHS secretary, she was “constrained by both our Constitution and the APA [Administrative Procedure Act] to apply faithfully the facts to the law in implementing the TPS program. The record to-date shows she has yet to do that.”

Reyes noted that the president “has made — freely, at times even boastfully — several derogatory statements about Haitians and other nonwhite foreigners.” Among other things, she recounted that he called Haiti a “s—hole country,” suggested Haitians “probably have AIDS” and complained that their immigration to the U.S. is “like a death wish for our country.”

A divided federal appeals court panel in Washington declined the administration’s requestto lift the district court order. The two Democratic appointees in the majority said the government couldn’t show why it needed instant relief, whereas Haitians face “substantial and well-documented harms” if they lose protections, including “risk of detention and deportation, separation from family members, and loss of work authorization.” Trump appointee Justin Walker dissented, arguing that the government is irreparably harmed by courts intruding into executive policy. He also emphasized the “temporary” nature of TPS.

Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro,” a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.