The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to allow it to revoke temporary legal status granted by the Biden administration to hundreds of thousands of migrants.
Lower courts rejected the attempt to end the two-year parole given to 532,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, saying President Trump’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) failed to conduct the necessary case-by-case review.
The new emergency application argues the courts have no jurisdiction to review DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s revocations, describing it as one of the administration’s “most consequential immigration policy decisions.”
“In doing so, the district court engaged in the very review Congress prohibited — needlessly upending critical immigration policies that are carefully calibrated to deter illegal entry, vitiating core Executive Branch prerogatives, and undoing democratically approved policies that featured heavily in the November election,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in court filings.
The Trump administration has frequently brought emergency appeals to the Supreme Court, insisting federal district judges are improperly stymying the president’s agenda. Thursday’s filing marks the administration’s 14th Supreme Court emergency appeal since Trump took office.
It comes days after the administration asked the high court to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a separate program that protects from deportation those already in the country who cannot return to their home due to unrest or dangerous conditions, for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans. Sauer noted the case raises “similar issues.”
The lawsuit at hand was filed by various individuals and Haitian Bridge Alliance, an immigration services organization, after Noem terminated the parole program in March.
Former President Biden created the parole program as a way to ease pressure at the border, where a number of migrants from those countries had been crossing illegally or pushing to seek asylum.
The program instead asked migrants to apply online, requiring them to secure a U.S.-based financial sponsor in order to secure permission to enter the country and two years of work authorization.
Immigration advocates have criticized Trump’s attempt to revoke their status, arguing they are unfairly targeting those that came to the U.S. through legal pathways.
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, an appointee of former President Obama who serves in Boston, blocked Noem’s termination on April 14. The administration’s plea to the Supreme Court comes after the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this week declined to halt Talwani’s ruling as the appeal proceeds.
The administration’s request will go to Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who handles emergency matters arising from the 1st Circuit by default. She could act on the application alone or refer it to the full court, as justices have done for previous Trump administration requests.
