US Supreme Court lets Trump revoke humanitarian legal status for migrants

By Andrew Chung

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday let President Donald Trump's administration revoke the temporary legal status of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan, Cuban, Haitian and Nicaraguan migrants living in the United States, bolstering the Republican president's drive to step up deportations.

The court put on hold Boston-based U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani's order halting the administration's move to end the immigration "parole" granted to 532,000 of these migrants by Trump's predecessor Joe Biden, potentially exposing many of them to rapid removal, while the case plays out in lower courts.

Immigration parole is a form of temporary permission under American law to be in the country for "urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit," allowing recipients to live and work in the United States. Biden, a Democrat, used parole as part of his administration's approach to deter illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexican border.

Trump called for ending humanitarian parole programs in an executive order signed on January 20, his first day back in office. The Department of Homeland Security subsequently moved to terminate them in March, cutting short the two-year parole grants. The administration said revoking the parole status would make it easier to place migrants in a fast-track deportation process called "expedited removal."

As with many of the court's orders issued in an emergency fashion, Friday's decision was unsigned and gave no reasoning. Two of the nine-member court's three liberal justices, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor, publicly dissented.

The court botched its decision by failing to account for its impact, Jackson wrote in an accompanying opinion. The outcome, Jackson wrote, "undervalues the devastating consequences of allowing the government to precipitously upend the lives and livelihoods of nearly half a million noncitizens while their legal claims are pending."

The case is one of many that Trump's administration has brought in an emergency fashion to the nation's highest judicial body seeking to undo decisions by judges impeding his sweeping policies, including several targeting immigrants.

The Supreme Court on May 19 also let Trump end a deportation protection called temporary protected status that had been granted under Biden to about 350,000 Venezuelans living in the United States, while that legal dispute plays out.

Biden starting in 2022 let Venezuelans who entered the United States by air request a two-year parole if they passed security checks and had a U.S. financial sponsor. Biden expanded that to Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans in 2023.

A group of migrants granted parole and Americans who serve as their sponsors sued, claiming the administration violated federal law governing the actions of government agencies. Talwani in April found that the law governing such parole did not allow for the program's blanket termination, instead requiring a case-by-case review. The Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to put the judge's decision on hold.

'TRAUMATIC IMPACT'

Guerline Jozef, executive director of Haitian Bridge Alliance, one of the plaintiffs, expressed dismay at Friday's decision.

"Once again, the Trump administration blatantly proves their disregard for the lives of those truly in need of protection by taking away their status and rendering them undocumented. We have already seen the traumatic impact on children and families afraid to even go to school, church or work," Jozef said.

The administration called Friday's decision a victory, asserting that the migrants granted parole had been poorly vetted. Ending the parole programs "will be a necessary return to common-sense policies, a return to public safety and a return to America First," Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said.

While many of those with parole status are at risk of deportation, at least 250,000 had pending applications for another legal status, according to Karen Tumlin, director of the Justice Action Center, one of the groups suing over the parole termination. Those applications had been frozen by Trump's administration but the freeze was lifted this week, said Tumlin, adding: "Those should be processed right now."

Migrants with parole status reacted to Friday's decision with sadness and disappointment.

Fermin Padilla, 32, waited two years in Chile to receive parole status and paid for his work permit.

"We complied with all the requirements the United States government asked for," said Padilla, who lives in Austin, Texas, and delivers Amazon packages. "Now I'm left without security because we don't know what will happen. We're without anything after so much sacrifice. It's not fair."

Retired university professor Wilfredo Sanchez, 73, has had parole status for a year and a half, living in Denver with his U.S. citizen daughter, a doctor.

"I was alone in Venezuela, with diabetes and hypertension," Sanchez said. "I have been relaxed here, happy with (my daughter), her husband and my grandkids. I have all my medical treatment up to date."

"To return to Venezuela is to die, not just because of my medical conditions, but from loneliness," Sanchez added.

Carlos Daniel Urdaneta, 30, has lived in Atlanta for three years with parole status, working in a restaurant, since coming to the United States to earn money to send to his ill mother in Venezuela.

"If I have to work triple in my country, I will," said Urdaneta, whose wife and son are still in Venezuela. "I won't risk staying here undocumented with this government."