 "US Supreme Court allows Trump admin to end legal protections for 350,000 Venezuelans")
The Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Trump administration to end legal protections for 350,000 Venezuelans, putting them at risk of deportation.
The court’s decision, with one judge disagreeing, paused a lower court ruling that had extended Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Venezuelans, which was set to expire last month. The justices did not explain their decision, which is normal in urgent cases.
TPS lets people already in the US live and work legally when their home countries are unsafe because of disasters or conflict.
The high court’s order appears to be the “single largest action in modern American history stripping any group of non-citizens of immigration status,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, one of the attorneys for Venezuelan migrants.
“This decision will force families to be in an impossible position either choosing to survive or choosing stability,” said Cecilia Gonzalez Herrera, who sued to try and stop the Trump administration from revoking legal protections from her and others like her.
“Venezuelans are not criminals,” Gonzalez Herrera said.
“We all deserve the chance to thrive without being sent back to danger,” she said.
The ramifications for the hundreds of thousands of people affected aren’t yet clear, Arulanantham said. The Homeland Security Department did not immediately comment on the Supreme Court’s order.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsA federal appeals court had earlier rejected the administration’s request to put the order on hold while the lawsuit continues. A hearing is set for next week in front of U.S District Judge Edward Chen, who had paused the administration’s plans.
The case is the latest in a string of emergency appeals President Donald Trump’s administration has made to the Supreme Court, many of them related to immigration and involving Venezuela. Last week, the government asked the court to allow it to end humanitarian parole for hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, setting them up for potential deportation as well.
The high court also has been involved in slowing Trump’s efforts to swiftly deport Venezuelans accused of being gang members to a prison in El Salvador under an 18th-century wartime law called the Alien Enemies Act.
The complex economic and political crisis in Venezuela has driven more than 7.7 million people to leave the South American nation since 2013. Venezuela’s most recent economic troubles pushed year-over-year inflation in April to 172 per cent. The latest chapter even prompted President Nicolás Maduro to declare an “economic emergency” last month. Maduro, whose reelection last year to a third term has been condemned internationally as illegitimate, also has cracked down on his political opponents.
In the dispute over TPS, the administration has moved aggressively to withdraw various protections that have allowed immigrants to remain in the country, including ending the temporary protected status for a total of 600,000 Venezuelans and 500,000 Haitians. That status is granted in 18-month increments. Venezuela was first designated for TPS in 2021; Haiti, in 2010.
The protections had been set to expire April 7, but Chen found that the expiration threatened to severely disrupt the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and could cost billions in lost economic activity.
Chen, who was appointed to the bench by Democratic President Barack Obama, found the government hadn’t shown any harm caused by keeping the program alive.
But Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote on behalf of the administration that Chen’s order impermissibly interferes with the administration’s power over immigration and foreign affairs.
In addition, Sauer told the justices that people affected by ending the protected status might have other legal options to try to remain in the country because the “decision to terminate TPS is not equivalent to a final removal order.” Congress created TPS in 1990 to prevent deportations to countries suffering from natural disasters or civil strife.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said she would have rejected the administration’s emergency appeal.
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