Supreme Court Upholds Trump Administration’s Decision to Strip Temporary Status from 500,000 Immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela

The Supreme Court has allowed the Trump administration to revoke temporary status granted to over 500,000 immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela under the Biden administration. The decision, issued in a brief order on Friday, followed an emergency application by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. The court’s ruling suspends a lower court decision by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, who said that the government must conduct individualized reviews before revoking status. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, with Jackson warning about “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 immigrants had been granted temporary status under a two-year “CHNV parole program” initiated in 2022 by then-Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. This program was created to address the influx of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border and allowed individuals who passed security checks and had sponsors to enter and stay in the United States. Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that Talwani had no authority to halt Noem’s decision, as the federal Immigration and Nationality Act gave her discretion to revoke parole.

The Department of Homeland Security previously said in October 2024 that parole would not be extended after the two-year period ended. However, the Haitian Bridge Alliance and others challenged the administration’s decision in court, arguing that it would make parolees “undocumented, legally unemployable, and subject to mass expulsion.” They contended that Talwani’s decision didn’t prevent Noem from ending the program altogether but only required that the government couldn’t rescind status for all parolees at once.

The case is part of a larger pattern of the Trump administration challenging lower court decisions that have blocked its policies. This move comes as President Trump pushes to expand executive power without congressional approval. The legal battle continues, as the status of these 532,000 people now hangs in the balance amid ongoing litigation.

Link: NBCNews