Supreme Court lets Trump end protections for Haitian, Syrian migrants. Salvadorans in Aurora at risk, too

WASHINGTON | The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the Trump administration to end legal protections for migrants fleeing violence and natural disaster in Haiti and Syria, exposing hundreds of thousands more people to potential deportation.

The 6-3 decision overturns lower court orders and allows the Department of Homeland Security to swiftly end temporary protected status, a program that protects a total of 1.3 million people from 17 countries.

It marked another victory at the high court for Republican President Donald Trump’s sweeping crackdown on immigration. Though the conservative-dominated court has put the brakes on some of Trump’s immigration policies over the last year, it handed him a second win Thursday in a decision clearing the way for the revival of a policy restricting immigrants seeking asylum.

The court’s conservative majority found that immigration authorities have sole authority over the program, and the law doesn’t allow judges to intervene.

More Temporary Protective Status immigrants at risk of deportation, including those in Aurora

People from more than dozen other countries will pay close attention, perhaps none more than an estimated 200,000 from El Salvador, and as many as 4,000 in Aurora.

“I disagree with the Supreme Court’s decision removing protections for immigrants fleeing war and natural disasters,” Aurora Democratic Congressperson Jason Crow said in a statement. “The Trump administration should be focused on deporting violent criminals. Instead, they have torn apart families and gone after our neighbors, small business owners, and even children. Immigrants and asylum seekers who come here legally – including through Temporary Protected Status programs – work, pay taxes, and contribute greatly to Colorado. I will continue fighting to protect immigrant families and our community against Donald Trump’s extreme mass deportation efforts.”

Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman said the decision and what led to it reflects the larger need for comprehensive immigration reform.

“I think the Temporary Protected Status program definitely needs to be reformed.  For example, when there is a natural disaster, such as the devastating earthquake in El Salvador in 2001, we should provide humanitarian aid that is sufficient enough to allow them to remain in their own country instead of coming to the United States,”Coffman said in a statement. “However, those under the TPS program who have been in the United States, such as those of our own Salvadoran immigrant community, should not only be allowed to stay in the United States but should have a path to citizenship via a Green Card.”

Many Salvadorans have lived in the United States for 25 years under Temporary Protected Status, which allows those already in the country to stay with work permits in increments of up to 18 months as long as the Homeland Security secretary deems conditions unsafe for return.

President Donald Trump’s former secretary, Kristi Noem, ended TPS for all 12 countries that came up for renewal under her watch.

El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, occupies a special place as a U.S. ally among the leaders of the 17 countries that were designated with TPS when Trump took office, covering a universe of 1.3 million people that more than doubled during Joe Biden’s presidency. Extending TPS would secure a pipeline of remittances that people send to family back home, but few are counting on Trump to deliver any favors when it is up for renewal Sept. 9.

Salvadorans with TPS have been living and working legally in the United States since at least 2001, when two major earthquakes that hit the Central American country resulted in special status. The vast majority have children born in the U.S.

Aurora is home to the El Salvador consulate in Colorado.

Some have lost their jobs and fear being detained, separated from their American family members, and deported to a country they barely know.

TPS was created by Congress in 1990 to prevent deportations to countries suffering from natural disasters or civil strife. When Trump took office, Venezuelans comprised the largest group of beneficiaries, followed by Haitians and Salvadorans.

Trump has ended TPS for about 1 million people from countries including Venezuela, Honduras, Nicaragua and Afghanistan.

Trump and El Salvador’s Bukele share a militarized approach to fight transnational organized crime and hard rhetoric around national security and law and order.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited El Salvador during his first trip in office, securing a deal with Bukele for El Salvador to accept deportees of any nationality. Barely a month later, the U.S. sent hundreds of Venezuelans to a notorious maximum-security prison in El Salvador.

El Salvador has swung from one of the most violent places in the world to one of the safest countries in the Americas since Bukele ordered mass arrests in 2022. In April 2025, the State Department upgraded El Salvador’s travel advisory to its highest level, citing a drop in violent crimes and murders.

Bukele has not publicly requested an extension of TPS, even though ending it could be an economic blow. Salvadorans in the U.S. sent $9.9 billion in remittances to El Salvador last year, representing 24% of country’s gross domestic product, according to El Salvador’s central bank.

“I don’t think that the fact that Bukele has really delivered on Trump’s priorities necessarily means that Trump will respond to TPS extension requests,” Rebecca Bill-Chavez, chief executive officer of the Washington-based think tank Inter-American Dialogue said in April. “I don’t think there is any guarantee.”

How the Supreme Court ruled

The majority opinion from Justice Samuel Alito also brushed aside arguments that derogatory comments from Trump about Haitians showed the decision was unlawfully tinged by prejudice. He called the statements “insufficient to show that the termination of Haiti’s TPS designation was based on the race of the Haitian people.”

Justice Elena Kagan forcefully disagreed, calling Trump’s comments “so repellent and racially inflected that the majority declines to put them in print.” She pointed out that Trump had said Haitians in the U.S. “probably have AIDS,” and he also amplified false rumors during the 2024 campaign that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were abducting and eating dogs and cats.

Lawyers said Haitian immigrants would be in serious danger if they are sent back. “Simply put, the Supreme Court’s ruling will directly result in thousands of innocent people dying violent, needless deaths,” Geoff Pipoly and Andy Tauber said.

They urged the Senate to approve an extension of deportation protections for Haitians that’ passed the House on a rare bipartisan vote in April.

“Families are here, kids are going to school, parents are going into work, folks are trying to commute, and it’s like the Supreme Court just put all those activities on stop and put folks in limbo,” said Viles Dorsainvil, who runs a support center for Haitians in Springfield, Ohio.

Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP, called the “a devastating betrayal of Haitian families who have lived, worked, and contributed to this country for years –- only to be cast out based on anti-Black immigration sentiment.”

Haitians with TPS are also a key part of the workforce in long-term care facilities. “This would be a dreadful loss for all seniors in our community,” said Rita Siebenaler, a resident at Goodwin Living, a senior living community in Virginia.

The Justice Department appealed to the Supreme Court after judges postponed the end of the program for about 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians. The high court sided with the administration before and allowed the end of the program for people from Venezuela.

Federal authorities deny prejudice played a role. They also cited a Supreme Court decision from Trump’s first term that rejected bias claims based on his social media posts and upheld a travel ban on several Muslim-majority countries.

James Percival, DHS general counsel, applauded Thursday’s ruling. He said the program had, in many cases, become “de facto amnesty. This is a win for the rule of law and common sense.”

Since Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, Homeland Security has ended the protections, including some that had been in place for more than a decade, for people from 13 countries.

The terminations were made even though countries such as Haiti and Syria remain dangerous, immigration lawyers said. Four Haitian women who were deported from the United States in February were found beheaded and dumped in a river several months later, lawyers said in court documents.

The United States first granted protections to Haitians in 2010 after a catastrophic earthquake and extended them multiple times amid ongoing gang violence that has displaced more than a million people, according to court documents.

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.

“Today, many of our community members they feel lost,” Farrah AlKhorfan of Immigrants Act Now said about Syrian immigrants losing TPS protections. “They are trying to understand … what this decision means for them and how it will be implemented and how much time they will have to prepare for what comes next.”

The program was created by Congress in 1990 to prevent deportations to countries suffering from natural disasters, civil strife and other instability. It allows people already in the country to stay with work permits in increments of up to 18 months, but it does not provide a path to citizenship.

Associated Press writer Tim Sullivan in Minneapolis contributed to this report.