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In a win for the Trump administration, the United States Supreme Court has agreed that the government has the right to revoke humanitarian parole protections for more than 500,000 migrants.
Some shit you should know before you read: Back when President Biden was in office, he granted Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to migrants from countries facing armed conflict, environmental disaster, or extraordinary humanitarian crises, such as Venezuela, Haiti, Nicaragua, and others. The Biden administration argued that TPS was essential to protect vulnerable populations fleeing political repression, economic collapse, and natural disasters, and it was presented as a “lawful and moral” tool to prevent forced returns to dangerous environments. The process required applicants to show continuous residence in the US by a specific cutoff date, pass background and security checks, and re-register periodically to maintain status. Critics of the program, especially some conservative lawmakers, claimed that TPS was being exploited as a backdoor to indefinite legal stay, citing repeated extensions without congressional action and arguing that it weakened immigration enforcement and encouraged unauthorized migration.
What’s going on now: In a major immigration ruling, the US Supreme Court voted to allow the Trump administration to proceed with revoking humanitarian parole protections for over 500,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. The court’s unsigned emergency order effectively overturned a lower court decision by US District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston, which temporarily blocked the administration from ending the program while legal challenges played out. Judge Talwani had ruled that the Department of Homeland Security could not end the program in bulk and must instead conduct individualized, case-by-case reviews as required under federal immigration law.
The Supreme Court’s decision did not include a written opinion or legal rationale, as is common with emergency orders, but it had immediate consequences, clearing the way for the administration to begin expedited deportations of migrants previously protected under the CHNV humanitarian parole program.
In a dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined in part by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, warned that the ruling would cause “devastating consequences” by allowing the government to “precipitously upend the lives and livelihoods of nearly half a million noncitizens.” She described the migrants’ current position as an “untenable choice” between returning to dangerous countries or remaining in the US under the threat of sudden deportation.
In a statement to CNN, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said the Trump administration “celebrated” the Supreme Court ruling.
