The U.S. Supreme Court convened on April 29 for the current term’s final day of scheduled oral arguments. One case on the justices’ docket, Mullin v. Doe, had been brought by immigrants from Haiti and Syria who were challenging the Trump administration’s attempt to dismantle the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program, under which they legally remained in the country.

The hearing attracted countless media outlets and interested people from all over the world – including several members of the UCLA School of Law community, who were in the chambers to watch as the law school’s Ahilan Arulantham presented the case for the Syrian refugees.

Arulanantham is a professor from practice at UCLA Law and the faculty co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy. He partnered with several outside lawyers and organizations throughout his work on the matter.

During the nearly two-hour hearing before the justices, he argued for the continuation of the TPS regime that Congress had originally instituted for Syrian refugees in 2012 and renewed several times in the years since, due to ongoing strife and natural disaster, including during the first Trump administration.

“As we’ve heard today, the government reads this [TPS] statute like a blank check,” Arulanantham told the Supreme Court. On the contrary, he said, the administration’s argument “contravenes the text, bedrock administrative law, and common sense.”

The oral argument was the summation of a community-wide effort for people in and around UCLA Law. Several CILP members bolstered Arulanantham’s research and advocacy and attended the hearing. The law school also hosted moot courts in which he argued before and responded to questions from distinguished alumni and faculty members.

Arulanantham is one of the leading immigrants’ rights advocates in the country today. After almost two decades with the ACLU, during which he earned a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, or “Genius Grant,” he joined UCLA Law in 2021. He teaches in the law school and maintains an active legal practice, successfully litigating several cases and arguing before the Supreme Court four times. These include his previous appearance, in the fall of 2021, in FBI v. Fazaga, when he argued on behalf of Americans of the Muslim faith who were targeted by the federal government for surveillance because of their religion.

Other members of the UCLA Law community have argued in the Supreme Court recently. Distinguished Professor Stuart Banner, who runs the Supreme Court Clinic, has appeared several times, including on the first day of oral arguments this term, in Villarreal v. Texas.