The plaintiffs in a potentially massive Supreme Court case have alerted the justices that they have new evidence that former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem blatantly lied to the public on a key issue at the center of the case.
The issue concerns whether to allow the Trump administration to revoke temporary protected status (TPS) from Haitian migrants. The law has generally understood TPS to apply until conditions in their country of origin become safe enough for their return; however, the Trump administration has sought to have dramatically more discretion to decide when TPS ends and clear the way for deporting hundreds of thousands of people who were in the country legally.
A number of courts have ruled against the administration. The Supreme Court will decide the matter in the coming days.
The new filing says that new evidence proves Noem lied about having consulted with the State Department about the conditions of countries where TPS is being revoked.
"Recently obtained DHS documents — documents generated in connection with the July 1 termination notice — contain further evidence that the termination of Haiti’s TPS designation was a preordained outcome," said the filing. Specifically, documents prove that the decision to terminate was made on June 4, and "newly obtained DHS emails make clear that there was no such consultation before the Secretary’s June 4 decision to terminate Haiti’s TPS designation."
The filing asks the Supreme Court to throw out the entire case without rendering judgment and leave standing lower court decisions rejecting the administration, on the basis that the facts the Supreme Court used to grant a hearing in the case were not true in the first place.