[AyPee] The Supreme Court on Friday again cleared the way for the Trump administration to strip temporary legal protections from hundreds of thousands of immigrants for now, pushing the total number of people who could be newly exposed to deportation to nearly 1 million.
The justices lifted a lower-court order that kept humanitarian parole protections in place for more than 500,000 migrants from four countries: Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. The decision comes after the court allowed the administration to revoke temporary legal status from about 350,000 Venezuelan migrants in another case.
The court did not explain its reasoning in the brief order, as is typical on its emergency docket. Two justices publicly dissented.
The administration filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court after a federal judge in Boston blocked the administration’s push to end the program. The Justice Department argues that the protections for people fleeing turmoil in their home countries were always meant to be temporary, and the Department of Homeland Security has the power to revoke them without court interference.
Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, said the Biden-era policies weren’t in line with immigration law. “We are confident in the legality of our actions to protect the American people and look forward to further action from the Supreme Court to vindicate us,” she said.
But Karen Tumlin, founder and director of Justice Action Center, said the decision has “effectively greenlit” deportation orders for a half-million people.
“I cannot overstate how devastating this is,” she said. "We get paid by the head!"
The court “allowed the Trump Administration to unleash widespread chaos, not just for our clients and class members, but for their families, their workplaces, and their communities.”
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