By Andrew Chung
Feb 26 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday to intervene in its effort to strip deportation protections from about 6,000 Syrians living in the United States.
The Justice Department in an emergency request asked the Supreme Court to lift a judge's November decision that blocked the administration's move to end Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, for Syrians while litigation challenging the move continues.
It is the third time the administration has turned to the Supreme Court related to its efforts to terminate these protections for migrants. The court sided with the administration on both previous occasions, involving the revocation of TPS for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans.
TPS is a humanitarian designation under U.S. law for migrants from countries stricken by war, natural disaster or other catastrophes, shielding people given this status from deportation and allowing them to work in the United States.
Trump's Department of Homeland Security has moved to terminate TPS for 12 countries including Syria. Similar lawsuits have led to court rulings that are currently blocking the end of TPS for people from nations including Ethiopia, South Sudan, Haiti, Syria and Myanmar.
TPS was first extended to Syrians in 2012 during former President Barack Obama's administration, after the country plunged into a civil war that culminated with the toppling of President Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, an appointee of the Republican president, announced in September that Syria's TPS designation would end, noting that the situation there "no longer meets the criteria for an ongoing armed conflict that poses a serious threat to the personal safety of returning Syrian nationals."
In November, U.S. Judge Katherine Polk Failla in Manhattan blocked the Trump administration from terminating TPS for Syrians. The New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on February 17 declined to halt that order.
The Justice Department said in a filing that lower courts were flouting the Supreme Court's prior orders in the cases involving Venezuela's TPS designation. It suggested that the Supreme Court take up and hear arguments in the dispute given the "lower courts' persistent disregard" for the Supreme Court's actions.
The administration has said the TPS program has been overused and that many migrants no longer merit protection. Democrats and advocates for the migrants have said that TPS enrollees could be forced to return to dangerous conditions and that U.S. employers depend on their labor.
The court requested a response to the administration's request by March 5 from a group of Syrians challenging the policy.
(Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York and John Kruzel in Washington; Additional reporting by Nate Raymond and Daniel Wiessner; Editing by Will Dunham)
