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The Supreme Court heard oral arguments this week on President Trump’s push to strip temporary protected status from 350,000 Haitians and 6,100 Syrians living in the United States. The TPS program grants protection from deportation and work authorization to immigrants whose home countries are deemed unsafe to return to, most often because of war or natural disaster. The case could ultimately have ramifications for more than 1 million TPS holders from over a dozen countries.

TPS holders from Haiti and Syria say their countries remain unsafe and that DHS did not follow proper procedure. The lawsuit brought by Haitian TPS holders also accuses the administration of being motivated by racism — an allegation supported by a lower court ruling in February.

“Haiti is still in bad shape, and [TPS holders] cannot return there. So, you can imagine now the uncertainty that they live with on a daily basis,” says Vilès Dorsainvil, a plaintiff in Trump v. Miot, the case brought by Haitian TPS holders. Dorsainvil is the co-founder and executive director of the Haitian Support Center in Springfield, Ohio. President Trump targeted the Haitian community in Springfield in 2024, falsely saying Haitian residents were eating pet dogs and cats. “We’ve been scapegoated as a community,” says Dorsainvil.

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to the Supreme Court. On Wednesday, the justices heard oral arguments on President Trump’s push to strip temporary protected status from 350,000 Haitians and 6,100 Syrians living in the United States. The TPS program grants protection from deportation and work authorization to immigrants whose home countries are deemed unsafe to return to, most often because of war or natural disaster. Last year, then-Secretary of DHS Kristi Noem said recent extensions of TPS for Haitians and Syrians were not justified or necessary.

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In separate lawsuits, the TPS holders charged that the government did not follow proper procedure in making that decision and that their home countries are still unsafe. The cases were combined to be heard before the court Wednesday. The Haitian lawsuit also accuses the Trump administration of being motivated by racism, in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. District Court Judge Ana Reyes agreed, ruling the decision was likely made because of “hostility to nonwhite immigrants,” unquote.

This is Geoffrey Pipoly, a lawyer representing the Haitian plaintiffs.

GEOFFREY PIPOLY: The true reason for the termination is the president’s racial animus towards nonwhite immigrants and bare dislike of Haitians in particular. The president has disparaged Haitian TPS holders specifically as undesirables from a, quote, “s—hole country,” and days after falsely accusing them of, quote, “eating the dogs and eating the cats of Americans,” he vowed that he would terminate Haiti’s TPS. And that is exactly what happened.

GEOFFREY PIPOLY: The true reason for the termination is the president’s racial animus towards nonwhite immigrants and bare dislike of Haitians in particular. The president has disparaged Haitian TPS holders specifically as undesirables from a, quote, “s—hole country,” and days after falsely accusing them of, quote, “eating the dogs and eating the cats of Americans,” he vowed that he would terminate Haiti’s TPS. And that is exactly what happened.

AMY GOODMAN: All three liberal justices pressed the administration on this question. This is an exchange between Justice Sotomayor and D. John Sauer, the U.S. solicitor general.

JUSTICE SONIA SOTOMAYOR: Now, we have a president saying, at one point,........

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