Press Releases

For Immediate Release                             Contact: Tionee Scotland
June 27, 2026                                                    202-808-6129

PRESS RELEASE

CONGRESSWOMAN PLASKETT CONDEMNS SUPREME COURT RULING STRIPPING PROTECTIONS FROM HAITIAN TPS HOLDERS

Washington, D.C. — Congresswoman Stacey E. Plaskett (D-VI) released the following statement after the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 6-3 ruling in Mullin v. Dahlia Doe and Trump v. Miot, clearing the way for the Trump administration to strip Temporary Protected Status (TPS) from more than 350,000 Haitian nationals and approximately 6,000 Syrian nationals currently living and working legally in the United States.

The ruling comes after Congresswoman Plaskett, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (D-Massachusetts), Congresswoman Yvette Clarke, Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, and their colleagues spent months fighting to preserve these protections. In 2025, Congresswoman Plaskett led a congressional letter with 48 colleagues urging the former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem to extend TPS for Haitian nationals. Earlier this year, Congresswoman Plaskett assisted in whipping votes for House passage of H.R. 1689, legislation to require DHS to restore Haiti’s TPS designation through April 2029. That bill now awaits action in the Senate.

“This decision, while deeply disappointing, is ultimately unsurprising from a Court that has repeatedly placed a regressive-activist-conservative agenda above the rule of law. The Supreme Court has handed the Trump Administration unchecked authority to remove legal protections from hundreds of thousands of people who came here lawfully, registered with the government, passed background checks, paid taxes, and built lives in this country,” said Congresswoman Plaskett. “Haitian TPS holders contribute nearly $6 billion to the U.S. economy each year and pay $1.56 billion in taxes – funding programs they cannot even access. More than 20 percent work in healthcare, including as nursing assistants and caregivers. Sending them back to a country the State Department warns Americans not to visit due to gang violence, kidnapping, and instability is not policy. It is cruelty and short-sighted.”

Congresswoman Plaskett continued, “I am also troubled by the Court’s refusal to seriously grapple with the record of racial animus underlying this decision. Federal judges found that the administration’s actions were likely motivated by documented hostility toward Black and Haitian immigrants. Justice Kagan said plainly in dissent that there is no dispute these individuals will suffer irreparable harm. She is right.”

Congresswoman Plaskett added, "Congress created TPS over 35 years ago, on a bipartisan basis, because we agreed that we should not send people back to war, disaster, and death — particularly individuals within our own hemisphere who, by working in the United States, create some level of economic support for neighboring countries that, without the support of those TPS holders, may utterly collapse. The House has already acted. I call on the Senate to move H.R. 1689 without delay. These families deserve the protection of the law, and I will continue fighting to ensure they have it.”

BACKGROUND: Temporary Protected Status (TPS), in place since 1990, provides humanitarian protection to nationals of countries experiencing armed conflict, natural disasters, or other extraordinary conditions, allowing them to live and work lawfully in the United States. Haiti’s TPS designation was first granted in 2010 following a catastrophic earthquake that killed at least 225,000 people. Syria first received TPS designation in 2012 amid a devastating civil war. Former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem moved to revoke both designations in 2025, contending conditions had improved — a conclusion at odds with the State Department’s own travel warnings, which continue to advise against travel to both countries due to extreme danger. The Supreme Court’s ruling means those terminations may now proceed without further judicial review.