Supreme Court hands Trump win on revoking parole for 500K foreign nationals

The Supreme Court on Friday stayed a lower court order that blocked the Trump administration from deporting roughly 500,000 migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. The decision is a near-term victory for President Donald Trump  as he moves to crack down on border security and immigration priorities in his second term. 

The Supreme Court decision stays, for now, a lower court ruling that halted Trump’s plans to terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) protections for some migrants living in the U.S., which allows individuals to live and work in the U.S. legally if they cannot work safely in their home country due to a disaster, armed conflict or other “extraordinary and temporary conditions.” 

Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.

A woman under a purple umbrella walks past the Supreme Court, Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024, in Washington.  (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer asked justices earlier this month to allow the administration to proceed with its decision to revoke the status for the migrants, accusing U.S. District Judge Edward Chen of improperly intruding on the executive branch’s authority over immigration policy.

“The district court’s reasoning is untenable,” Sauer told the high court, adding that the program “implicates particularly discretionary, sensitive, and foreign-policy-laden judgments of the Executive Branch regarding immigration policy.”