Posted by The Chicago Bar Association (CBA) along with the Black Women Lawyers’ Association (BWLA) of Greater Chicago, Inc., issues this statement not to take sides in the ongoing immigration policy debate, but to address a matter of institutional concern: the increasing use of the United States Supreme Court’s emergency docket to resolve major questions of law without full briefing, complete factual records, or the benefit of appellate court opinions that would sharpen the legal questions presented.
Since January 2025, the Administration has terminated or sought to terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for nationals of at least thirteen countries: Haiti, Venezuela, Honduras, Syria, Myanmar, Ethiopia, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, South Sudan, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Cameroon, affecting more than one million individuals. This litigation now spans multiple district courts and four federal circuits, generating competing rulings that create uncertainty for TPS holders, their employers, and the legal practitioners who serve them.
On March 16, 2026, the Supreme Court granted certiorari before judgment in Trump v. Miot et al. and Noem v. Doe, consolidating the Haiti and Syria TPS challenges for oral argument in April 2026. The CBA commends the Court’s decision to decline an immediate stay of the district court’s ruling and allow the district court orders to remain in effect during its review. That decision appropriately recognizes that displacing reasoned lower court findings through the emergency docket, without full briefing or argument, is inconsistent with the institutional norms that protect the Court’s legitimacy and the rule of law.
The Associations take no position on whether any specific TPS designation should be extended or terminated. We do take a firm position that the emergency docket must be reserved for genuine emergencies, not as a vehicle to circumvent appellate review of contested questions of administrative law. When the government disagrees with a lower court ruling, the appropriate path is the ordinary appellate process: full briefing, circuit court review, and, where warranted, a petition for certiorari grounded in a fully developed record. Bypassing that process, repeatedly and across multiple circuits, threatens judicial independence and deprives litigants, practitioners, and the public of the reasoned guidance they are entitled to expect.
The CBA and the BWLA join the Haitian American Lawyers Association (HALA) of Illinois, HALA of New York, HALA of Georgia, and their co-signatories in urging the Supreme Court, Congress, and the Executive Branch to respect the structural integrity of the judicial process, in TPS litigation and in all matters where the emergency docket is sought as a substitute for customary, deliberate appellate review.