The US Supreme Court on Thursday upheld key elements of President Donald Trump's hardline immigration agenda in two rulings that back his administration's efforts to restrict protected status and access to asylum.
In the first case, the court's conservative majority sided with the Department of Homeland Security in its effort to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for migrants from Haiti, Syria and other countries.
The Trump administration argued that the protections, intended as a temporary measure, had been repeatedly extended, allowing many beneficiaries to remain in the US for years.
The plaintiffs had argued that the decision was driven by racial motives and lacked the required legal review. The justices rejected those claims, sending the case back to a lower court for reconsideration in light of the ruling.
The ruling affects hundreds of thousands of migrants, including around 350,000 Haitians and more than 6,000 Syrians, as well as people from roughly a dozen other countries, who could now lose protected status after fleeing conflict, crises and natural disasters, according to the New York Times.
In a separate ruling, the Supreme Court said that foreign nationals seeking asylum are entitled to enter the asylum process only after physically crossing into US territory.
The court found that arriving in the immediate border area on the Mexican side does not qualify as entry under existing regulations.
The case concerned asylum claims that US authorities had refused to process because the applicants remained on Mexican territory near the border.
