(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court on Friday granted the Trump administration’s request to categorically revoke humanitarian parole for more than 530,000 immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela and order them out of the country.
The court did not explain its order staying a lower court decision that temporarily blocked the administration’s abrupt policy change.
In March, the Department of Homeland Security revoked protections for migrants from five countries issued by the Biden administration. The agency gave them 30 days notice to leave the country unless they had legal protection under another program.
A number of migrants and immigrant advocacy groups sued over the move, alleging that federal law did not give DHS Secretary Kristi Noem discretion to categorically eliminate humanitarian protections — only to do so on a case-by-case basis. A federal district court agreed.
The high court’s decision means the Trump administration can move forward with it’s policy change even as the litigation continues in lower courts on the merits.
Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor dissented.
Jackson, writing in opposition, accused the court’s majority of callously “undervalu[ing] 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.
“Even if the Government is likely to win on the merits, in our legal system, success takes time,” Jackson wrote, “and the stay standards require more than anticipated victory. I would have denied the Government’s application because its harm-related showing is patently insufficient.”
Earlier this month, the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to terminate “Temporary Protected Status” for approximately 350,000 Venezuelans who were protected from deportation and allowed to work in the United States.
While the administration’s moved to restrict immigration and turn away refugees from countries like Afghanistan and Haiti, it recently accepted white South African refugees — prompting criticism.
The administration’s falsely claimed a genocide is taking place against white Afrikaner farmers, which South Africa’s president pushed back on during a meeting with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office.
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