Trump Asks Supreme Court to Reinstate End of Syrian TPS

The Trump Justice Department has filed an emergency application asking the U.S. Supreme Court to let Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for roughly 3,860 Syrians, after lower federal courts in New York and the 2nd Circuit blocked her termination order. Noem moved last year to end Syria’s TPS designation—first granted in 2012 and repeatedly renewed under Obama and Trump—arguing that the Assad regime fell in December 2024, sanctions were lifted, relations normalized, and that only 'sporadic, isolated' violence remains, so Syria no longer meets TPS criteria. A district judge found her decision likely unlawful and driven by 'political influence,' but in its Supreme Court filing Solicitor General D. John Sauer calls that ruling 'indefensible,' says it defies prior high‑court orders allowing TPS terminations for Venezuelans, and warns that it improperly intrudes on executive control over foreign policy and immigration enforcement. The administration notes that other appeals courts have already greenlit its moves to end TPS for Afghanistan, Cameroon, Nepal, Honduras and Nicaragua, and frames the Syrian injunction as blocking a 'core administration policy' and posing public‑safety and national‑security risks. If the Supreme Court lifts the injunction, thousands of Syrian TPS holders in the U.S. would lose deportation protection and work authorization once their status expires, marking another step in Trump’s broader second‑term drive to unwind TPS for a long list of countries.