Supreme Court Lets Trump Administration Roll Back TPS For Venezuelans

Topline

The Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for the Trump administration to remove hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans from the U.S., ruling 8-1 to throw out a lower court order, while litigation moves forward, that blocked the federal government from rescinding Venezuelan immigrants’ temporary protected status.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem appears for a Senate hearing on May 8 in Washington, DC.

Getty Images

Key Facts

Justices ruled in favor of the Trump administration after multiple lower courts blocked Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s decision to remove Venezuelan migrants from the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program.

TPS grants protections to immigrants from designated countries who can’t safely return home because of issues like armed conflicts, natural disasters and other extreme circumstances, meaning the government cannot deport them while their protected status is in place.

Noem terminated the TPS protections for Venezuelans in February after the Biden administration extended them, but her order was blocked by a district court judge, and a federal appeals court then agreed that the migrants’ protections should remain in place while litigation moves forward.

The Supreme Court reversed those rulings, meaning Venezuelans will lose their protected status while the case moves forward in federal appeals court and potentially gets appealed to the Supreme Court.

The appeals court—or, later, the Supreme Court—could still ultimately rule against the Trump administration and reinstate Venezuelans’ TPS protections, but the Supreme Court’s decision Monday means the Trump administration can now deport people while the litigation is pending who were previously protected.

Justices did not give any reasoning for their decision to let the Trump administration rescind the protections, and only Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said she would have rejected the government’s request.

What To Watch For

The Supreme Court’s ruling means the Trump administration will be able to erase protections for Venezuelan migrants until at least July, when the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is scheduled to hear oral arguments in the case challenging the administration. Even if that court rules the Trump administration’s decision to strip Venezuelans of their TPS protections is unlawful, however, the Supreme Court’s Monday ruling revoking the protections will remain in place. The Supreme Court’s order will only be lifted either if justices decide not to take up the case—which means whatever the appeals court rules will stand—or, if they take up the case, after the Supreme Court hears oral arguments and issues a final ruling.

Big Number

344,355. That’s the number of Venezuelan nationals in the U.S. who were covered under TPS as of March 31, 2024, according to federal data cited by the Congressional Research Service. Venezuelan citizens make up the largest share of the 863,800 people covered under TPS, which also includes foreign nationals from Haiti, El Salvador, Honduras, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Nepal, Syria, Cameroon, Nicaragua, Ethiopia, Myanmar, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia and South Sudan.

Why Were Venezuelans Granted Temporary Protected Status?

The Biden administration first granted TPS protections to Venezuelans, and then extended them, amid concerns about conditions in Venezuela arising from authoritarian President Nicolás Maduro’s rule. Former Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas cited a number of factors in his initial decision to include Venezuelans in TPS and extend their protections, including “economic contraction; inflation and hyperinflation; deepening poverty; high levels of unemployment; reduced access to and shortages of food and medicine; a severely weakened medical system; the reappearance or increased incidence of certain communicable diseases; a collapse in basic services; water, electricity, and fuel shortages; political polarization; institutional and political tensions; human rights abuses and repression; crime and violence; corruption; increased human mobility and displacement (including internal migration, emigration, and return); and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Key Background

The Trump administration’s decision to remove Venezuela from TPS is part of its broader mass deportation plans, as the White House has targeted an increasing number of immigrants for deportation and faced scrutiny over removing immigrants without due process. Venezuelan nationals have been particularly targeted by the Trump administration, as the government garnered widespread scrutiny for deporting hundreds of alleged members of Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua to El Salvador despite a court order forbidding it and evidence suggesting many of those deported never belonged to the violent gang. The Supreme Court has increasingly been asked to weigh in on the Trump administration’s immigration policies as its mass deportations have been met with a slew of legal challenges, and its ruling Monday comes after justices separately ruled Friday that the Trump administration could not deport Venezuelan nationals under the Alien Enemies Act. That law, which the Trump administration has tried to use to deport alleged Tren de Aragua members, grants the executive branch broad power to carry out deportations during national emergencies, but justices ruled the government did not give migrants sufficient notice so they could challenge their removals in court.

Supreme Court Lets Trump Administration Roll Back TPS For Venezuelans—For Now