WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Supreme Court held oral arguments in Mullin v. Doe. This case concerns the Department of Homeland Security's authority to terminate Temporary Protected Status for Haitian and Syrian nationals. Kristi Noem, who served as Secretary of Homeland Security, announced the termination of Temporary Protected Status for citizens of 13 countries, including Haiti and Syria.
Geoffrey Pipoly, who represents Haitian Temporary Protected Status recipients, argued that terminating these protections violated the Constitution's due process clause. Temporary Protected Status allows certain migrants to live and work in the United States due to humanitarian circumstances. Race has been a factor in U.S. citizenship and immigration law since the nation's founding. A 1790 federal statute limited naturalization to free white persons.
The Court ruled in 1922 that Takao Ozawa was ineligible for naturalization because he was not a white person. Ozawa contended the naturalization statute intended to exclude only Black people and Native Americans. Justice George Sutherland authored the unanimous opinion in Ozawa v. United States. Sutherland said, "The words 'white person' were meant to indicate only a person of what is popularly known as the Caucasian race."
The Court ruled in United States v. Thind that Bhagat Singh Thind was not a white person. Congress eliminated racial eligibility requirements from naturalization statutes in 1952. An 1870 amendment had extended naturalization eligibility to people of African descent. Justice Samuel Alito stated, "I don't like dividing up the people of the world arbitrarily into three racial groups."
More recently, the Court ruled in 1975 in United States v. Brignoni-Ponce that immigration officers may consider a person's Mexican appearance during investigative stops. In 1976, the Court ruled in United States v. Martinez-Fuerte that immigration officers may conduct detailed questioning based on apparent Mexican ancestry. A federal district court judge issued a temporary injunction preventing immigration officers from considering apparent race or ethnicity during stops and questioning in California. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit denied a government request to stay this injunction.
The Justice Department petitioned the Court to intervene in the California district court injunction. In September, a majority issued an order lifting the injunction against using race or ethnicity for immigration stops in Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo.