The United States Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in Mullin v. Doe, which allows the Trump Administration to terminate Temporary Protected Status for Haitian and Syrian nationals, was met with dismay by immigrant advocates and members of Cambridge’s Haitian community.
“To say that this is a disappointment is an understatement,” said Sarang Sekhavat, chief of staff at the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Coalition (MIRA). Sekhavat noted that when TPS was initially terminated, “they weren’t even letting commercial planes fly into Port-au-Prince because it was so dangerous. And you’ve got a very similar situation in Syria, so there is absolutely no justification for what this court and administration are doing.”
The Federal Aviation Administration first banned U.S. commercial flights to Port-au-Prince in November 2025, after a Spirit Airlines Flight was shot at while landing at the Toussaint Louverture International Airport. The FAA recently extended the ban until September.
In his majority opinion, Justice Samuel Alito centered on the part of the TPS statute that bars judicial review of determinations made by the Department of Homeland Security Secretary “with respect to the designation, or termination or extension of a designation of a foreign state.” Alito said it meant plaintiffs in Noem v. Doe, now Mullin v. Doe, could not question former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s termination of TPS for Syrian nationals. Trump v. Miot, which challenged the Haiti TPS termination, was also folded into the decision.
In a dissenting opinion, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that “to preclude review of those determinations is of course to insulate critical matters from judicial scrutiny.”
The decision stayed lower-court orders from federal district courts in Washington, D.C. and New York that had temporarily barred Noem’s decision. It now allows federal authorities to move forward with ending the protections. There are 19,000 Haitian TPS holders in Massachusetts and an unknown number of Syrian TPS holders. Roughly 1,800 Haitians live in Cambridge.
“I’m still reading the Supreme Court’s ruling with anger, trying to make sense of it,” Michel DeGraff, an MIT linguistics professor originally from Haiti, said via text. He said what angered him most was what he called “the court’s willingness to discount racial animus” and that the court had condemned Haitian families to having to return to “a country devastated by gang violence.”
Alito’s majority opinion and a concurring opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas denied that the Trump Administration and Noem had made statements that were “overtly racial.” Instead, they said the Administration was demonstrating general policy skepticism toward the TPS program. Alito noted all 13 TPS extensions made before the current administration had been terminated.
Kagan’s dissent stated that the Haitian plaintiffs had carried their burden to prove that racial discrimination was a “motivating factor” of the decision. “The evidence they have offered includes statements by the President so repellent and racially inflected that the majority declines to put them in print.”
Joining along in condemnation of the decision was local poet and owner of the Little Crêpe Café Jean Dany Joachim, who was born in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince.
“I wish that all the people in the stadiums and at home watching the World Cup, along with all the players, take pause and read this latest Supreme Court ruling,” he said via text. “I wonder if then, a new wind would not blow, to bring other ideas of solidarity.”
Cambridge Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui and City Manager Yi-An Huang offered a joint statement saying “our Haitian and Syrian neighbors are essential members of our schools, workplaces, faith communities and neighborhoods.” They also noted Cambridge has a sister-city relationship with Les Cayes in Haiti.
They encouraged residents to use MIRA and the city-led Commission on Immigrant Right and Citizenship as resources for uncertainties about immigration status, and said the city was working with local partners to set up a series of webinars for interested or concerned residents.
In Washington, Rep. Katherine Clark, Rep. Ayana Pressley and Sen. Ed Markey were among the Democrats who denounced the ruling in a press conference.
“If this doesn’t make you mad, I don’t know what does,” said Clark.
A stronger
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