Legal Implications of TPS and Asylum

Let's consider this, where every day we go deep on one big news story. Today, two major immigration rulings at the Supreme Court, curbing immigration was the key promise President Trump made ahead of his second term, and today, the Supreme Court handed the administration two major victories. The first had to do with asylum. The justices cleared the way to block asylum seekers from entering the United States before they can apply for protection. Prior to today's ruling, a migrant who came to the U. S. Mexico border and spoke to a border agent was thought of as an arrival, even if they didn't step foot on US soil. That meant they could apply for asylum and enter the US as they awaited a hearing , but not anymore. And in a separate ruling, the justices addressed a program intended to offer humanitarian protection to some immigrants. The court allowed the Trump administration to begin ending temporary protected status or TPS for thousands of migrants who've been living and working legally in the U. S. The ruling applies to migrants who fled Syria and Haiti, clearing the way for mass deportations. My people , they can't go back . It's real . The reality in Haiti is real. Currently, there are more than three hundred thirty thousand immigrants who are directly affected by today's TPS ruling, and it could affect hundreds of thousands more . Consider this. The Supreme Court has struck a blow to longstanding immigration protections. What do the rulings mean and how will they shape immigration policy in the future . From NPR, I'm Wanna Summers It's Consider This from NPR. The U. S. Supreme Court issued two decisions giving President Trump more power to pursue his immigration agenda to better understand the implications of these rulings , I spoke with MPR's immigration policy correspondent, Hemena Bustio. Hemenna, let's start with TPS or temporary protected status. What are the implications of that ruling? In a six to three decision, the Conservative majority ruled that the president has virtually unrestrained power to end temporary protected status , often called TPS. This was a case specifically about TPS recipients from Haiti and Syria, which total over three hundred thousand people. But it has broader implications. TPS provides deportation, protection, and grants work permits, and it's given to people from specific countries affected by war, natural disasters, political instability, or any other condition that makes the country unsafe to return to. Each country's designation can last six to eighteen months and that's at the discretion of the Secretary of Homeland Security. Now the court is agreeing with the government that m aking those designations is up to the Secretary and not subject to legal review. Okay, so what happens to the people who are on the program? Well, they need to either adjust their status, which there are very limited ways of doing so or they need to leave the country. And if they don't do either, they do risk falling out of status and that could lead to an arrest, detention, and ultimate deportation. Many face job loss as well as companies will not be able to continue legally employing thousands of workers. Ira Kurzben is the attorney representing Haitian TPS holders. Their families are American citizens . They have American citizen children . So we're talking in a practical manner with respect to all the GPS people. You're talking about millions of people in the United States who contribute to the economy . He argues Haiti, Syria, and other countries are just not stable enough for people to return. And many of these people have also been here for decades. Now to the second immigration decision from the court today and that one's related to asylum. What can you tell us? In another six to three decision, the court backed a policy that allows custom and border protection agents to turn away asylum seekers before they cross the U. S. border. The order says asylum seekers need to fully cross the U. S. border with Mexico to claim asylum, so essentially migrants who are turned back by officials under this policy technically never left the physical Mexican side of the border. So the administration argues they are ineligible to apply for that legal protection to be in the U. S. The ruling effectively further limits who can get permission to even stay in the country Take stock for us, what did these rulings mean for the administration's broader immigration priorities? Well, both of these rulings reduce legal pathways to enter the country. The administration has a broader goal of mass deportations and in order to reach that goal, the administration has increased the number of people who are eligible for deportation , even if they are legally here. The ruling on TPS allows the administration to strip existing protections from deportations and permissions to legally work here, the administration has also terminated TPS for nearly every country that had it at the start of President Trump's term. The asylum ruling also limits how migrants can ask for permission to stay. This administration is very focused on immigration enforcement in the interior of the country, while also keeping border crossings as minimal as possible , and these rulings allow the government to further change the immigration system. Pierre Samena Bustio, thanks. Thank you. As we just heard, the Supreme Court ruled in a major case involving the temporary protected status program, also known as TPS. NPR legal affairs correspondent, Nina Tottenberg gives us a closer look at the court's decision. By a vote of six to three, the court's conservative supermajority ruled that the president has virtually unchecked power to end the temporary protected status program known as TPS. Congress enacted the law in nineteen ninety to allow fully vetted and eligible migrants living in the U. S. to remain and work here legally if they cannot return safely to their home countries because of natural disasters, armed conflicts and other extraordinary conditions. Since the law's enactment, every president , Republican or Democrat, has embraced it. But Trump has systematically tried to end the program . And today, the Supreme Court gave him the tools to do it in two cases. One involves some three hundred fifty thousand Haitians who were granted TPS status in twenty ten after a devastating earthquake , and roughly seven thousand Syrians granted TPS status during that country's civil war. Writing for the court's conservatives, Justice Samuel Alito said that the TPS statute bars any court review of how the President and his Department of Homeland Security have used their authority to end TP S status . At the same time, he also rejected the Haitians' separate constitutional claim that the decision to eject them from the country was based on racial prejud iced political discourse by prominent public figures is increasingly couched in terms that would have scandalized the public just a short time ago, he said, But whatever one may think of those statements, they are insufficient to show that the termination of Haiti's TPS designations was based on the race of the Haitian people. Writing for the Liberal Dissenters, Justice Elena Kagan lambasted that claim , saying, quote, The evidence is there, plain to see in the president's own statements , which even his own lawyers cannot bear to repeat in court. Statements which she quoted at length in which Trump referred to Haiti as a filthy, dirty, disgusting, Shole country, Trump's debunked claims that Haitians living in the U. S. were eating their neighbors' pets , and his assertions that Hait ians are poisoning the blood of the country in addition to his repeated comments asking, quote, Why can't we have more people from Norway and Sweden? J. Johnson, who served as Secretary of Homeland security in the Obama administration reacted to the court's decision this way. The majority seems to be willing to give President Trump the benefit of the doubt here all they're not overtly racist. It comes about as close as you can to being overtly racist. Ohio state law professor Cesar Garcia Hernandez had a more pointed reaction What is racial if not describing the poisoning of our blood and the similar comments that the president has made . And University of Chicago, law professor Aziz Hook. So it's very hard to come away from this opinion with a sense that there is ever going to be a situation in which the court, even when it has record evidence in front of it, finds that there is racial discrimination against a racial minority. That said, in pract ical terms, there are big consequences, not just for the Haitian community , according to Krish, Omira, Big Noraja, president and CEO of Global Refuge , the largest faith based immigration nonprofit in the US This decision affects three hundred fifty thousand Haitians and a third of those Haitians work in our healthcare sector. They are caregivers. They are doctors . And I think part of the bipartisan support was a recognition of the local impact it would have on Americans who are obviously desperately seeking care for themselves, for their kids, and for their parents. That bipartisan was sport recently demonstrated when the House of Representatives passed a bill to extend TPS status for Haitians . But even if it were to pass the Senate, President Trump would almost certainly veto the bill. In a second immigration decision today, also written by Justice Alito, the court's conservative majority sided with the Trump administration in making it much harder for those seeking asylum in the U S, Nina Tottenberg NPR News, Washington . This episode was produced by Grady Martin, Michelle Aslam, and Tyler Bartlam. It was edited by Krishnavaller and T imbe Aermius. Our interim executive producer is Courtney Dorning . It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Wanna Summers