The United States Supreme Court has allowed President Donald Trump’s administration to end the temporary legal status of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan, Cuban, Haitian, and Nicaraguan migrants living in the country, making it easier for the Republican president’s efforts to increase deportations, Reuters reports.
The court suspended a decision by a federal judge who had blocked the administration’s intention to terminate the Temporary Protected Status granted to 532,000 migrants by Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden.
Two of the court’s three liberal members, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor, dissented from the ruling.
Temporary Protected Status allows individuals to stay in the country based on “urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit” and permits recipients to live and work in the United States.
Trump authorized the termination of the status through an executive order signed on January 20th, his first day of his second presidential term, and the Department of Homeland Security began phasing them out in March, Reuters recalls.
The administration stated that ending Temporary Protected Status will facilitate the expedited deportation process for migrants.
This is one of several cases brought before the Supreme Court by the Trump administration seeking to overturn rulings by judges obstructing the implementation of his policies.
On May 19th, the Supreme Court allowed Trump to end temporary deportation protection granted by the Biden administration to approximately 350,000 Venezuelans in the United States while a lower court ruling in that case is pending.
In an effort to reduce illegal border crossings, Biden in 2022 began allowing Venezuelans who entered the United States by air to apply for two-year residency permits if they passed security checks and had a U.S. financial sponsor.
Biden expanded that process to Cubans, Haitians, and Nicaraguans in 2023 as his administration faced a surge in illegal immigration
