Washington (United States) (AFP) – The US Supreme Court on Thursday backed a Trump administration move to strip deportation protections from some 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians living in the United States.

The 6-3 ruling by the conservative-dominated court could have implications for more than one million beneficiaries of so-called Temporary Protected Status (TPS) from more than a dozen countries.

Justice Samuel Alito, whose majority opinion was joined by the five other conservative justices, said the Department of Homeland Security's decision to end TPS for Haitians and Syrians was not subject to judicial review.

TPS protects its holders from deportation and is granted to people deemed to be in danger if they return home because of war, natural disaster or other extraordinary circumstances.

Lawyers for Haitian and Syrian TPS holders contended during oral arguments in April that conditions back home remained unsafe and the administration's move was motivated at least in part by racial hostility.

Alito rejected claims that race was a "motivating factor" in President Donald Trump's decision to strip Haitians of TPS status.

"None of the cited statements by either the President or the (Homeland Security) Secretary was overtly racial, and in substance all expressed policy views that could rest on race-neutral justifications," Alito wrote.

Trump campaigned for the White House on a pledge to expel millions of migrants and has pushed to dismantle the TPS program as part of his broader immigration crackdown.

At the height of the 2024 presidential election campaign, the Republican president stoked fears about Haitian immigrants by falsely claiming they were eating Americans' pets.

TPS status has been revoked for nationals of Afghanistan, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Honduras, Myanmar, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, South Sudan, Venezuela, Yemen, and others in addition to Haitians and Syrians since Trump took office.

Haitians became eligible for TPS in 2010 following a devastating earthquake and the country continues to suffer from extreme poverty, rampant violence from heavily armed gangs and chronic political instability.

The State Department advises Americans not to travel to the Caribbean nation "due to kidnapping, crime, civil unrest and limited health care."

TPS was extended to war-torn Syria in 2012.

...