Supreme Court to take up case that will affect hundreds of thousands

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday said it will hear oral arguments in April in two cases brought by immigrants hailing from Syria and Haiti after the Trump administration tried to end their temporary protections, initially granted because their countries had been deemed too dangerous for return.

Monday’s order consolidates two cases, one brought on behalf of 6,000 Syrians with Temporary Protected Status and another from 350,000 Haitians.

The justices also declined to grant the Trump administration’s request to stay a lower court order that prevented the end of TPS for those two countries, meaning that protections from deportation will remain for now for those immigrants.

The justices will hear arguments for the cases in the last week of April, with final briefs due by April 20. A specific date has not yet been set.

Congress created TPS to allow immigrants from countries dealing with war, natural disasters, political violence or other instabilities to remain and work in the United States on a temporary basis, ranging from six months to 18 months.

The TPS holders who sued the Trump administration have argued that their countries’ conditions were not considered when the Department of Homeland Security determined their protections should end.

The Trump administration has sought to cancel legal protections for immigrants, so far revoking TPS status for 13 of the 17 countries that were designated at the start of President Donald Trump’s second term.

Those 13 countries are Afghanistan, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Haiti, Honduras, Myanmar, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen.

The four remaining countries with TPS expiring this year without an extension are El Salvador, Lebanon, Sudan and Ukraine.