The Supreme Court Decision That Will Tear a Hole in the Economy
Restricting legal immigration has been an all-consuming priority for President Donald Trump in both of his administrations. During his first term in office, Trump unsuccessfully attempted to rescind legal protections for migrants from several countries fleeing from violence, environmental disasters, and other extreme conditions. With the Supreme Court decision this week allowing the Trump administration to end Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, for Haitians and Syrians, the future of the program as a whole is at risk.Removing TPS for approximately 330,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians is fundamentally a humanitarian issue, potentially forcing thousands to return to unsafe and even life-threatening circumstances in their home countries. But it will also have a dramatic economic effect within the United States, as the loss of workers and consumers will resonate in communities of all sizes throughout the country.“They’re workers, they’re taxpayers, they’re consumers, they’re community members. And removing them not only impacts the workforce but their families, and their employers, and the local economy,” said Steven Hubbard, senior data scientist at the American Immigration Council.Around 1.3 million people from 17 countries are protected through TPS, according to the latest data available from the Department of Homeland Security, as of March 31 last year. These designations are only in place for a finite period of time and must be extended by the government to continue. In 2025, the Trump administration terminated TPS for 10 countries, and four more countries have designations set to expire this year. The Supreme Court decision makes it much more likely that litigation challenging Trump’s efforts to end TPS for other countries will be successful. “Employers will have to let those people go if they want to stay on the right side of the law, and in theory that group of people is expected to leave the country,” said Tara Watson, director of the Center for Economic Security and Opportunity at the Brookings Institute. “I don’t think most of them will, unless they are apprehended by [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement], but it’s going to have a pretty big impact just because of the magnitude of the change.”The impact of the Supreme Court’s decision could be felt almost immediately. Employers will have to fire Haitian and Syrian laborers who are only authorized to work through TPS. The loss of these protections could have a profound effect on the health care industry, and specifically in elder and home care, which employs a large number of Haitian workers. The health care industry is facing an ongoing labor shortage, meaning that it may be difficult to replace the jobs lost because of the termination of this program. TPS individuals also participate in construction, agriculture, hospitality, and retail industries in large numbers, and have a higher rate of workforce participation than U.S.-born individuals.“Many have been living and working in the United States for years, and even probably for decades,” said Hubbard. If employers lose workers who may have years of experience in a particular field, it could be difficult to find replacements, he added.A report by the American Immigration Council found that TPS individuals paid $10.3 billion in state and local taxes in 2021. Through their taxed income, they help bolster programs from which they themselves cannot benefit, including Social Security, Medicare, and safety net supports for low-income households. Since 2001, TPS individuals have contributed $20 billion to Social Security, according to the criminal justice and immigration advocacy organization FWD.us. The primary Social Security fund is facing insolvency by the end of 2032, according to an updated estimate from the fund’s trustees based in part on a projected decrease in immigration.“They aren’t consuming as much in public benefits as people sometimes think, and are contributing fiscally to the economy,” Watson said about TPS holders. “Taking away this pipeline of resources for [Social Security] seems like a mistake at this particular moment.”Then there are the knock-on effects for local economies. The surge in immigration enforcement operations in several cities in 2025 resulted in more job losses than they would have seen otherwise, according to the Brookings Institute. This included jobs in the arts and entertainment industries, which have fewer immigrant workers than other sectors. This could be an indication of how the loss of TPS holders could also affect even seemingly tangential industries.Moreover, according to estimates from FWD.us, TPS holders contribute $29 billion annually to the American economy overall. In 2021, TPS holders had $8 billion in spending power, which can be used for necessities such as groceries and rent. The economic impact was especially great in Florida, California, Texas, and New York, where the bulk of TPS holders are concentrated; in the first three states, this population had more than $1.1 billion in spending power. The influx of TPS individuals in smaller cities, such as Springfield, Ohio, has bolstered local economies.“If you think about communities—they require a tax base, they require people having income, because once they have income they spend it locally,” Hubbard said. “When that’s taken away, that can have negative consequences for many communities.”TPS individuals have few and complicated pathways for staying in the U.S. legally, and the Supreme Court has rubber-stamped many of Trump’s efforts to limit methods for migrants to receive asylum or permanent residence. Many of them also live in households with U.S. citizen residents; according to FWD.us, TPS holders live with U.S.-born children. The consequences for this younger generation could be severe, particularly if their households are losing a wage earner.“Their parents went from having regular formal sector jobs to not having those jobs and being at risk of deportation, so that’s going to affect a lot of children,” said Watson.