In a filing submitted on July 9 and docketed on Monday, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer urged the justices to order the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to reconsider its ruling in a challenge to the decision by then-Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem to end protections for Venezuelans and Haitians in the United States under a program that allows foreign nationals to remain in the United States and work here when they cannot safely return home.
Then-DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas designated Venezuela for the program, known as Temporary Protected Status, in 2021 and then redesignated it in 2023. In 2025, he announced that the program would be extended through October 2026. Mayorkas cited a “severe humanitarian emergency” resulting from the “severe political and economic crisis” in Venezuela as the reason for the designation.
In 2010, then-Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano designated Haiti under the TPS program, shortly after a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck the country, killing more than 300,000 people and causing catastrophic damage. That designation was repeatedly extended.
After Noem announced her decisions to end the designations, a group representing TPS holders went to federal court in San Francisco to challenge it. U.S. District Judge Edward Chen set aside the decisions, and the 9th Circuit upheld that ruling. Last fall, while that litigation was moving forward, the Supreme Court paused Chen’s order with regard to Venezuela, effectively clearing the way for the Trump administration to deport Venezuelan TPS beneficiaries while the case continued.
The 9th Circuit declined to reconsider its decision, and the Trump administration now has come to the Supreme Court, asking the justices to throw out the lower court’s ruling and direct that court to take another look in light of the justices’ ruling last month that courts generally cannot review the Secretary of Homeland Security’s decision to designate or terminate a country under the TPS program.
In that decision, Mullin v. Doe, Sauer wrote, the Supreme Court held that the law creating the TPS program bars courts from reviewing non-constitutional claims. Because the court of appeals reached a contrary conclusion, Sauer argued, sending the case back to the 9th Circuit would allow that court to reconsider that conclusion (and, although Sauer did not say so explicitly, presumably reverse its earlier ruling granting relief to the Venezuelan and Haitian TPS beneficiaries) based on the Supreme Court’s ruling in Mullin.
The challengers’ response is currently due on Aug. 12.
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[ H/T SCOTUSblog ]
