SCOTUS
Mullin v. Doe
DecidedJun 25, 2026
6-3decision
Source: CourtListener.
Court blocks judicial review of TPS terminations for Haiti and Syria, ends interim relief
Impact7/10
What it does
The Court held that the TPS statute's judicial-review bar blocks all non-constitutional challenges to TPS terminations — including claims that the Secretary failed to consult other agencies as required by law — because the word "determination" in the statute covers both the final decision and the steps leading up to it. The Court also held that Haitian TPS holders are unlikely to succeed on their equal protection claim because the administration's across-the-board termination of all TPS designations provides a race-neutral explanation for the Haiti termination. As a result, the lower courts' orders that had paused the terminations of TPS for Haiti and Syria were reversed.
Who benefits
The federal executive branch, which regains the ability to terminate TPS designations without those decisions being paused or reviewed by courts on procedural or substantive grounds.
Who is affected
Haitian and Syrian nationals currently living and working in the United States under Temporary Protected Status, who will lose their legal status and work authorization as the terminations take effect during ongoing litigation.
Practical impact
Hundreds of thousands of Haitian and Syrian nationals who held TPS will lose their protected legal status and work authorization as the terminations take effect, and most will face the choice of leaving the United States or risking detention and removal. Courts are now barred from reviewing not only the Secretary's judgment about whether a country qualifies for TPS, but also whether the Secretary followed the statute's mandatory procedural steps — such as consulting other agencies — before making that decision. Future TPS terminations by the executive branch will face no judicial check on procedural compliance under this ruling.
Majority reasoning
The majority held that the TPS statute's plain language — barring "judicial review of any determination . . . with respect to the . . . termination" of a TPS designation — is broad enough to cover not just the Secretary's final decision but also every procedural step leading up to it, including the required consultations with other agencies. The Court reasoned that the word "determination" can mean either a single decision or the entire process of arriving at one, and that the phrase "with respect to" further broadens the bar's reach to cover related matters. The majority rejected the argument that the bar applies only to substantive decisions and not procedural ones, finding no support for that distinction in the statute's text. On the equal protection claim regarding Haiti, the Court assumed (without deciding) that the most demanding standard applied, but concluded that the plaintiffs were unlikely to prove race was a motivating factor because the administration had terminated every TPS designation that came up for renewal — a racially diverse group of 13 countries — which the Court found to be a strong race-neutral explanation. The majority noted that none of the cited statements by the President or Secretary were overtly racial and that all could rest on race-neutral policy objections to the TPS program as it had been implemented.
Dissent reasoning
The dissent argued that the judicial-review bar applies only to the Secretary's actual "determination" about whether a country's conditions still qualify for TPS — not to the procedural steps the statute requires the Secretary to take before making that determination. Justice Kagan wrote that in ordinary English, a "determination" is a decision, not the process leading up to one, and that reading the bar to swallow mandatory pre-decision procedures renders those requirements meaningless. The dissent contended that the Secretary plainly failed to consult with appropriate agencies about country conditions, as required by law, because the only communications were brief emails asking about "foreign policy concerns" — a different subject than whether Haiti and Syria were safe to return to. On the equal protection claim, the dissent argued that the President's own statements about Haitians — including characterizations involving disease, filth, and comparisons to Norway and Sweden — were so racially inflected that they clearly showed race was at least a motivating factor in the Haiti termination, which is all the Arlington Heights standard requires. The dissent emphasized that the Arlington Heights test does not ask for race to be the only or even the primary reason for a decision; one racial factor among many is enough to establish a likely violation, and the District Court's finding to that effect was not clearly erroneous.
Constitutional question
Does the Temporary Protected Status statute bar courts from reviewing the Secretary of Homeland Security's decision to terminate TPS designations, including claims that the Secretary failed to follow required procedures? And does the equal protection clause bar a TPS termination allegedly motivated by racial animus?