Supreme Court lets Trump end legal protections for 500,000 migrants, exposing more to deportation

WASHINGTON — 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. 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.''

Republican President Donald Trump promised on the campaign trail to deport millions of people, and in office has sought to dismantle Biden administration policies that expanded paths for migrants to live legally in the U.S. In a 2024 presidential debate, Trump amplified false rumors that Haitian immigrants in Ohio, including those with legal status under the humanitarian parole program, were abducting and eating pets, court documents note.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in dissent to Friday's ruling that the effect of the high court's order is ''to have the lives of half a million migrants unravel all around us before the courts decide their legal claims.'' Justice Sonia Sotomayor joined the dissent.

Jackson echoed what U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani wrote in ruling that ending the legal protections early would leave people with a stark choice: flee the country or risk losing everything. Her ruling came in mid-April, shortly before permits were due to be canceled. An appeals court refused to lift it.

The Supreme Court's order is not a final ruling, but it means the protections will not be in place while the case proceeds. It now returns to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston.

Talwani, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama, did allow the Trump administration to revoke parole, but on a case-by-case basis.

But the Trump administration argued the parole was granted en masse, and the law doesn't require ending it on an individual basis. Taking on each case individually would be a ''gargantuan task,'' and slow the government's efforts to press for their removal, Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued.

The high court's decision could ultimately affect another ruling from Talwani this week in favor of other people covered by humanitarian parole policies, including Afghans, Ukrainians and children from Central America.

Joe Biden used humanitarian parole more than any other president, employing a special presidential authority in effect since 1952.

Beneficiaries included the 532,000 people who have come to the United States with financial sponsors since late 2022, leaving home countries fraught with ''instability, dangers and deprivations,'' as attorneys for the migrants said. They had to fly to the U.S. at their own expense and have a financial sponsor to qualify for the designation, which lasts for two years.

The Trump administration's decision was the first-ever mass revocation of humanitarian parole, attorneys for the migrants said. They called the Trump administration's moves ''the largest mass illegalization event in modern American history.''

The case is the latest in a string of emergency appeals the administration has made to the Supreme Court, many of them related to immigration.

The court has sided against Trump in other cases, including slowing his efforts to swiftly deport Venezuelans accused of being gang members to a prison in El Salvador under an 18th century wartime law called the Alien Enemies Act.

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This story has been corrected to fix the spelling of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson's first name.

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Associated Press writer Mark Sherman contributed to this report.