The Supreme Court heard last Wednesday in an expedited manner (“certiorari before judgment” for the judicial nerds among us) oral argument in a case centered on whether a President’s Executive Branch agency can withdraw, on its own recognizance, Temporary Protected Status from immigration populations who remain here under that status. Several District and Appellate courts have said no, not without (judge-determined) sufficient interagency review of the matter.

The governing statute is quite clear: granting, withdrawing, extending, or not extending temporary protected status for folks from particular nations is not a justiciable matter; courts have no standing to adjudicate these decisions.

The only legitimate recourse those demanding TPS be extended/maintained for Haitians (for instance) is to argue that that governing statute limit is unconstitutional and should be struck. Even this, though, is itself doomed to failure. Here’s Art III, Sect 2, Clause 1 on judicial jurisdictions:

The [Supreme Court] judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity…to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party….

DHS, which is the agency with TPS responsibility within the United States, most assuredly is “the United States” in this context.

Here’s Art III, Sect 2, Clause 2 on judicial jurisdictions:

…the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.

Under the Immigration Act of 1990 as amended, which created the Temporary Protected Status facility, there “is no judicial review of any determination” of the DHS secretary “with respect to the designation, or termination or extension of a designation, of a foreign state.”  That’s a pretty clear act of setting such Regulations—limiting the courts’ jurisdiction—here withdrawing TPS actions from judicial scrutiny.

And Art III, Sect 1:

The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.

Federal District and Appellate courts, being inferior to the Supreme Court are bound by those same jurisdictional limits.

For good or ill, US courts have nothing to say regarding any aspect of Temporary Protected Status settings.

The Act, as amended, can be read here. The Act withdrew references to court jurisdiction and placed that jurisdiction within the State or INS district, or in the main, within the DHS.