The Supreme Court will allow, for now, the Trump administration to proceed with plans to strip temporary legal protected status from thousands of illegal aliens from Venezuela living in the U.S.
The court’s decision allows the Trump administration to move forward with plans to cancel Temporary Protected Status for illegal aliens who entered the U.S. under the Biden administration’s Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans parole program.
The justices’ order stays a ruling from a lower court that had blocked cancellation of the program as the case continues to move forward through the courts. About 350,000 Venezuelans are living in the U.S. under the program and now stand to lose deportation protection.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson publicly dissented, but neither Jackson nor the other justices explained the reasoning for their decisions.
“The Supreme Court’s decision today has reaffirmed a very simple fact. Temporary Protected Status is just that–temporary,” Rep. Mark Green, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, told The Daily Signal.
“Additionally,” Green, R-Tenn., continued, “a number of these individuals who received [Temporary Protected Status] were initially admitted through the Biden-Harris administration’s unlawful Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan (CHNV) mass-parole program, which was so fraud-ridden even then [Department of Homeland Security] Secretary [Alejandro] Mayorkas temporarily paused it.”
“The Trump administration is keeping its promise to restore the rule of law and allow federal law enforcement agencies, like [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], to do their jobs: to remove inadmissible aliens who no longer have a lawful reason to be in the country,” the chairman said.
On his first day back in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing DHS to “Terminate all categorical parole programs,” including the “Processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans.”
In March, DHS issued a notice announcing the official termination of the program effective on April 24, but a federal judge blocked DHS from revoking legal status for the illegal aliens in the U.S. under the parole program.
The court’s Monday decision is a win for the Trump administration after the justices ruled Friday to extend their block on the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport illegal alien gang members from Venezuela.
In an unsigned opinion Friday, the justices sent the case back down to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit and asked the lower court to determine the process the illegal aliens are legally entitled to before they are removed.
This piece was updated with additional information after publication.
