The United States Supreme Court has authorized the Trump administration to revoke the legal status of over 500,000 migrants who were allowed into the country under a humanitarian parole programme initiated by former President Joe Biden, The Guardian reported.
The court’s ruling, issued on Friday, impacts migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela who entered the U.S. under a two-year humanitarian parole period.
The programme, which admitted up to 30,000 individuals per month, was designed to provide temporary protection for those fleeing extreme human rights abuses.
In a legal shift that could result in mass deportations, the conservative-majority court lifted a lower court’s injunction that had previously blocked Trump’s efforts to dismantle the programme.
The Supreme Court order was unsigned and offered no explanation.
Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor dissented.
Jackson wrote: “Undervalues 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.
It is apparent that the government seeks a stay to enable it to inflict maximum pre-decision damage.”
She noted that affected migrants now face two “unbearable options”: “One option is to elect to leave the United States and thereby, confront ‘dangers in their native countries,’ experience destructive ‘family separation’ and possibly ‘forfeit any opportunity to obtain a remedy based on their … claims.’”
“The other option is to remain in the US after parole termination and risk imminent removal at the hands of government agents, along with its serious attendant consequences.”
Jackson argued: “Either choice creates significant problems for respondents that far exceed any harm to the government. At a minimum, granting the stay would facilitate needless human suffering before the courts have reached a final judgement regarding the legal arguments at issue, while denying the government’s application would not have anything close to the kind of practical impact.”
Since returning to office, President Trump has revived his administration’s hardline immigration policies. His legal team contended that Biden’s parole programme exceeded statutory immigration powers.
Lower courts had previously sided with maintaining the programme, criticizing Trump’s interpretation of immigration law as flawed.
However, the Supreme Court’s ruling now permits the administration to advance its agenda while litigation continues.
President Trump, who has promised sweeping immigration reforms, has already enacted several aggressive measures.
In one case, his administration invoked a wartime law to deport Venezuelans suspected of gang affiliations.
The BBC noted that humanitarian parole has long been used to admit migrants fleeing crises, including Cubans after the 1960s revolution and Ukrainians during the 2022 Russian invasion.
