Press Release
Published on June 25, 2026
Washington, D.C. — Human Rights First deplores today's Supreme Court rulings in Mullin v. Al Otro Lado and Mullin v. Doe, two devastating decisions that eliminate legal protections for people seeking safety and allow the Trump administration to advance its anti-immigrant agenda, dismantling long-standing humanitarian safeguards, and facilitating the administration’s mass deportation campaign.
The court’s decision in Mullin v. Al Otro Lado affirms the government’s ability to turn asylum seekers away from ports of entry and deny them access to the U.S. asylum process altogether, in contravention of the protections Congress guaranteed under U.S. law both to those present and those arriving in the United States. This decision, coupled with the administration’s efforts to block all access to safety across the southern border, sets the stage for the wholesale circumvention of U.S. treaty obligations to not return asylum seekers to persecution. These practices benefit no one and return vulnerable people to danger. As the DHS Office of Inspector General found under the first Trump administration, they also drive desperate people seeking to escape such danger to enter the United States without authorization and are a boon to smugglers and criminal networks.
In Mullin v. Doe, the court allowed the Trump administration to move forward with terminating Temporary Protected Status (TPS) protections for Haitian and Syrian nationals. The communities at the center of this fight have endured years of political scapegoating and attacks on their belonging, yet they continue to organize, advocate, and insist that the government follow the law. The decision puts at serious risk 1.3 million members of our community who have called the United States home for years and decades. Human Rights First urges Members of Congress to press for an urgent Senate vote on H.R. 1689, which passed the House with bipartisan support and would extend crucial protections for Haitian TPS holders, and to pursue other protections for other TPS holders being targeted by this administration.
"These decisions will have devastating consequences for people seeking safety and for families who have built their lives in this country under protections the government now seeks to upend. This is a profound setback for the United States' commitment—grounded in domestic and international law—to protecting people fleeing persecution, violence, and instability," said Uzra Zeya, CEO and President at Human Rights First. "The Supreme Court is supposed to serve as a check on executive overreach. Instead, it has placed a stamp of approval on the U.S. administration’s campaign to shut the door on people fleeing persecution and make long-settled and hard-working immigrant communities more vulnerable to detention and deportation. At a time of peak forced displacement globally, these decisions further undermine U.S. standing internationally as the United States turns its back on decades of bipartisan and broad-based American support for welcoming the persecuted.”
"At a time when more people around the world are being forced from their homes by conflict, persecution, and instability, the United States should be strengthening pathways to protection, not dismantling them," said Robyn Barnard, Vice President for Refugee and Immigrant Rights at Human Rights First. "Today's decisions will have devastating human consequences for families seeking safety, longstanding members of our community, and our country for years to come. The administration is targeting TPS holders for the same reason it has attacked other humanitarian protections. Stripping people of lawful status makes it easier to enact Trump’s unjust and cruel deportation campaign. The United States has lost all credibility as a nation committed to equal protection of human rights.”
Human Rights First is dedicated to working alongside impacted communities, legal advocates, faith leaders, and policymakers to defend the right to seek asylum, preserve humanitarian protections, and ensure that the United States honors its legal and moral obligations to people fleeing persecution and harm.
