Topline
The Supreme Court cleared the way for the Trump administration to deport more than 500,000 immigrants on Friday, as justices ruled 7-2 to lift a court order that barred the White House from stripping migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela of their temporary legal status.
The Supreme Court paved the way Friday for the Trump administration to deport thousands of … More
Key Facts
Justices ruled to pause a lower court’s order that barred the Trump administration from getting rid of Biden-era regulations granting temporary protections to some migrants, giving them legal status in the U.S. and work authorization for two years while their asylum claims are pending if they pass a security check and can show they have someone to provide them with housing in the U.S.
The parole program, known as the “CHNV” program, was available for immigrants from Cuba, Haita, Nicaragua and Venezuela, with the Trump administration reporting some 532,000 people were granted protections before it announced in March it was terminating those programs.
District court Judge Indira Talwani ruled Wednesday the Trump administration could not unilaterally get rid of people’s protections while the litigation moves forward, and can only remove individual people’s protections on a “case-by-case basis.”
The Supreme Court’s majority did not provide any reasoning for their decision to let the Trump administration move forward with the deportations.
Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor dissented from the ruling, with Jackson writing the Trump administration “plainly failed” to prove they’d be harmed if the court had kept the protections in place, and the majority’s ruling will result in “devastating consequences” from “allowing the Government to precipitously upend the lives and livelihoods of nearly half a million noncitizens while their legal claims are pending.”
What To Watch For
The case over the immigrants’ legal status remains pending, and it’s still possible a court could rule the Trump administration must keep the protections in place. The Supreme Court’s ruling on Friday means the government will be free to deport people while the case moves forward, however, as the court said in its order that the ruling will stay in place while an appeals court hears the case. It will only lift if the Supreme Court, after the appeals court rules, decides not to take up the case—which would make whatever the appeals court rules the law of the land. If the Supreme Court decides to take up the dispute for oral arguments, its Friday order will stay in place until justices issue a final ruling. The immigrants and advocacy groups that brought the legal challenge previously said that a ruling against them at the Supreme Court would cause “swift and severe” harm and “render those without another lawful status undocumented and, with the loss of work authorization, legally unemployable.” “Class members would be subject to expedited deportation to the same despotic and unstable countries from which they fled, where many will face serious risks of danger, persecution, and even death,” attorneys for the migrants argued.
Chief Critic
In her dissent, Jackson noted that even if the Trump administration ultimately wins its case to dissolve the parole program, the Supreme Court wasn’t justified in letting the protections end while the litigation remains pending, given the significant harm it could cause the immigrants. While Jackson would let the courts “decide [the]
highly consequential legal issue first” before the government can deport anyone, the majority instead “allows the Government to do what it wants to do regardless, rendering constraints of law irrelevant and unleashing devastation in the process,” the justice wrote in her dissent, which Sotomayor joined.
Key Background
The Supreme Court has been increasingly asked to weigh in on the Trump administration’s mass deportation of immigrants, as the government’s actions have been met with a slew of legal challenges and repeatedly struck down in court. The ruling on the CHNV parole program comes after the Supreme Court separately allowed the Trump administration to move forward with deporting Venezuelan migrants who were granted legal protections under the Temporary Protected Status program. Justices stopped the Trump administration in May from using the Alien Enemies Act—which gives presidents broad authorities over deporting people from enemy countries—to deport Venezuelans, however, and ruled in April that the government must “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man whom the administration admitted it mistakenly deported to El Salvador. (Garcia has not yet been returned to the U.S.) The high court is also expected to rule in the coming weeks on the fate of Trump’s executive order rescinding birthright citizenship for people born in the U.S. whose parents aren’t citizens or permanent residents.
Further Reading
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2025/05/30/supreme-court-lets-trump-administration-revoke-500000-immigrants-temporary-protected-status/