The filing comes more than a week after an appeals court ruled against the government.
By Catholics for Catholics
The Trump administration requested the Supreme Court to permit it to terminate protections for thousands of migrants from Syria who have been residing in the United States without the risk of being deported.
Nearly 6,000 Syrians have been allowed to live and work in the United States through the program, known as Temporary Protected Status. The program is intended to protect migrants who cannot return to their countries because of perilous conditions.
But according to a story by The Epoch Times, the New York City-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit had blocked the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from canceling a temporary protected status (TPS) order for around 6,000 Syrians, inducing the administration to appeal.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer, in a filing on behalf of the administration, wrote to the justices, saying the “Second Circuit’s ruling is indefensible” because it “flouts this Court’s two prior stays of materially similar orders in materially similar postures.”
Sauer said the ruling was incompatible with the Supreme Court’s temporary orders in another case involving hundreds of thousands of migrants from Venezuela. He also asked the Supreme Court to formally examine the underlying legal questions to provide lasting guidance for lower courts considering the issue.
The administration called the lower court ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit “indefensible” in light of the justices’ earlier orders. If the Supreme Court does not act, the Justice Department said lower courts would continue to “impede the termination of temporary protection that the secretary has deemed contrary to the national interest, tying those decisions up in protracted litigation with no end in sight.”
But the attorneys for the migrants have contended that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s conclusion to end T.P.S. for the Syrians was “preordained” and that she did not consult with other appropriate agencies before making her choice.
DHS has restricted TPS for nationals from several countries, including South Sudan, Haiti, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Honduras, Burma, Nepal and Nicaragua. Abused for decades, the TPS has become a de facto amnesty program rather than a temporary reprieve, the Department said.
Noem’s department said last fall she would cease deportation protections for Syria, with a spokesperson saying that “conditions in Syria no longer prevent their nationals from returning home.”
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