In support of the Republican president’s push to increase deportations, the U.S. Supreme Court permitted President Donald Trump’s administration to revoke the temporary legal status of hundreds of thousands of migrants from Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti, and Nicaragua who were residing in the United States.
While the case is being heard in lower courts, the court stayed the order issued by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston, which stopped the administration’s attempt to terminate the immigration “parole” that former President Joe Biden had granted to 532,000 of these migrants. This could potentially expose many of them to immediate removal.
As is typical with emergency court orders, the decision was unsigned and lacked justification. Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, two of the three liberal justices on the court, formally dissented.
In order to enter the country for “urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit,” immigration parole is a type of temporary authorization that permits grantees to reside and work in the country. Biden, a Democrat, used parole as part of his administration’s strategy for deterring illegal immigration along the U.S.-Mexico border.
On January 20, the day he returned to office, Trump issued an executive order demanding that humanitarian parole programs be abolished. Then, in March, the Department of Homeland Security tried to shorten the two-year parole awards by terminating them. Revocation of parole, according to the government, would facilitate the placement of migrants in a “expedited removal” process.
The Trump administration has filed numerous lawsuits with the country’s highest court in an attempt to overturn rulings from subordinate courts that impede his ambitious plans, including those pertaining to immigration.
On Thursday, the Trump administration requested permission from the Supreme Court to proceed with terminating legal protections for Syrian migrants. This was the most recent urgent appeal to the nation’s highest court.
The Department of Justice wants the court to reverse a ruling by a judge in New York that prevented the Department of Homeland Security from terminating Syrians’ temporary protected status while legal actions are pending.
As the administration attempts to clamp down on immigration, the government is also requesting a broader ruling that may have an impact on other cases involving the protection of individuals from other nations.
Approximately 6,100 Syrians have temporary legal status after fleeing their homes due to armed conflict, according to court records.
Ending those protections, according to the International Refugee Assistance Project, could prevent people from working lawfully in the United States and increase the number of people at risk of deportation, particularly the 800 individuals whose applications are still pending.
The first protections for Syrians came in 2012, during a civil war that lasted more than ten years and ended with the fall of President Bashar Assad’s government in late 2024.
Less than a year later, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem took action to revoke protected status after concluding that the situation “no longer meets the criteria for an ongoing armed conflict that poses a serious threat to the personal safety of returning Syrian nationals.”
Immigration lawyers disagreed with that choice, saying that Syria was still dealing with a humanitarian crisis and that quickly taking away legal protections would force Syrians in the US to make “impossible choices.”
The administration says that the department can give or take away the temporary protections and that judges shouldn’t get involved.
The appeal must be answered by the government by March 4.
DHS has taken steps to take away legal protections that let immigrants from many countries stay in the US and work legally.
That includes more than a million people from Venezuela and Haiti all together.
A different judge in Washington recently stopped the government from taking away protections for 350,000 Haitians.
This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
