{"id":215116,"date":"2026-06-27T17:40:06","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T17:40:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/couldnt-breathe-tps-holders-fear-theyre-now-deportation-targets-following-supreme-court-ruling-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T17:40:06","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T17:40:06","slug":"couldnt-breathe-tps-holders-fear-theyre-now-deportation-targets-following-supreme-court-ruling-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/couldnt-breathe-tps-holders-fear-theyre-now-deportation-targets-following-supreme-court-ruling-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Couldn\u2019t breathe\u2019: TPS holders fear they\u2019re now deportation targets following Supreme Court ruling – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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When Harlaine, an emergency room and travel nurse, learned Thursday morning that the Supreme Court opened the door for the Trump administration to end immigration protections<\/a> for Haitians like herself, she said the weight of the decision sliced through her.
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\u201cI just couldn\u2019t breathe. I think I stopped breathing for a few minutes, and it was just like a heaviness on my chest,\u201d said Harlaine, a recipient of Temporary Protected Status since her mid-30s. The program provides temporary humanitarian relief to people from countries experiencing war, natural disasters or other catastrophes. It also allows them to work legally in the country and shields them from deportation. Some have lived in the U.S. for decades.
Harlaine feels desperate at the idea that she and potentially hundreds of thousands of others will suddenly lose their jobs once they lose their work permits without TPS status. She worked as a nurse in hospitals during the Covid pandemic with patients that included critically ill people on ventilators.
\u201cThey\u2019re starving us out, and they\u2019re starving out our friends and family back home who have been depending on us,\u201d said Harlaine, who asked that her last name not be used due to fear of immigration reprisal.
As President Donald Trump has sought to end TPS protections for immigrants from 17 countries in his second administration, a series of lawsuits have been making their way through the courts seeking to stop him.
The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the administration<\/a> on Thursday, clearing the way for it to strip TPS from about 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians. The court\u2019s ruling also has broad implications beyond those two countries. More than 1.3 million people from more than a dozen countries share those protections and could soon find themselves without the ability to work and vulnerable to deportation.
\u201cThis is a tremendous win for the Trump Administration. Today, the Supreme Court affirmed what President Trump has always maintained: temporary protected status is, by definition, temporary,\u201d White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement.
James Percival, the general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement to NBC News on Friday that the Supreme Court\u2019s decision \u201cvindicates DHS yet again.\u201d
\u201cThe T in TPS stands for TEMPORARY, yet many of these designations became de facto amnesty,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is a win for the rule of law and common sense.\u201d
Jessica Bansal, an attorney with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, said the loss of TPS status is a \u201ctragedy for each of the 1.3 million TPS holders who now face that possibility.\u201d
Melissa Keaney, the legal director of Muslim Advocates, said what comes next for immigrants from different countries will be on a case-by-case basis, depending on the status of the court challenges.
In those cases, both parties will return to court to analyze the Supreme Court\u2019s decision and determine next steps in light of the ruling, she said. Legal experts who spoke after the decision Thursday said the court\u2019s order would make it extremely difficult to challenge the end of TPS protections in court.
TPS holders told NBC News they are reeling from the decision, terrified of soon losing their ability to work and make ends meet, while also fearing becoming targets of Trump\u2019s mass deportation agenda. They also are left with the uncertainty of when exactly their protections will end and what comes next for them.
\u201cIt\u2019s the saddest day of my life in the U.S.,\u201d said Viles Dorsainvil, a TPS recipient and director at the Haitian Community Help and Support Center in Springfield, Ohio, where there is a large Haitian community that in 2024 was the target of baseless accusations <\/a>by Trump that they were eating pets. \u201cIt seems that now you cannot rely on the judicial system to uphold human dignity and justice.\u201d
In recent years, Haiti has seen a presidential assassination and extremely dangerous and violent conditions in the country, with entire regions being overrun with gangs.
\u201cIt\u2019s not safe there. The citizens of Haiti are being terrorized,\u201d Harlaine said of the country\u2019s political instability and violence. Like many, she has been a TPS recipient since the U.S. allowed the program for people from Haiti after a devastating earthquake in 2010.
She also thinks of what will happen to her 17-month-old son, who is a U.S. citizen.
\u201cI feel trapped, because being separated from my son is not an option,\u201d she said.
The Supreme Court majority wrote that judges did not have the authority to second-guess the administration\u2019s decisions when it came to ending TPS, while also rejecting a claim that the decision to remove protections for Haitians was discriminatory.
Conservative Justice Samuel Alito wrote that the statements cited by plaintiffs were not \u201covertly racial\u201d and were \u201cinsufficient to show that the termination of Haiti\u2019s TPS designation was based on the race of the Haitian people.\u201d
In her dissent, liberal Justice Elena Kagan accused the majority of downplaying Trump\u2019s racial comments about Haitians.
\u201cThe statements fairly shout, in their racial undertones and overtones alike, that race entered into the president\u2019s resolve to remove Haitians from this country,\u201d she wrote.
Kagan extensively quoted Trump himself, including his 2018 statement that Haiti is a \u201cshithole country\u201d <\/a>and his comments during the 2024 presidential campaign.
Doris Landaverde, a TPS holder from El Salvador and a co-coordinator with the National TPS Alliance, said she faced growing anxiety waiting for a decision she knew would ultimately impact people from around the world. TPS protections for Salvadorans, which began in 1990, currently extend into early September.
Landaverde said she has lived in the U.S. since the year 2000 and has lived here longer than she lived in El Salvador. In that time, the protections allowed her to build a life and career; she also has three U.S. citizen children, ages 12, 15 and 19.
The idea of losing her status and potentially being deported from the U.S. with her children terrifies her. The government has the personal information of TPS applicants and she said she feared the decision gives Trump \u201cmore freedom to make these mass deportations.\u201d
As for the impact of the Supreme Court siding with Trump on this, Landaverde said in Spanish: \u201cHope dies, and we\u2019re going to see desperation in people.\u201d
Daniella Silva is a national reporter for NBC News, focusing on immigration.
© 2026 NBCUniversal Media, LLC<\/p>\n

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