Supreme Court rules Trump administration can revoke legal protections for more than 500,000 immigrants

In a significant and politically charged ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday allowed the Trump administration to revoke temporary legal protections for more than 500,000 immigrants from Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti, and Nicaragua. The unsigned order lifts a lower court’s injunction that had kept the Biden-era humanitarian parole program in place, pending ongoing litigation.

The decision means that, effective immediately, hundreds of thousands of migrants who had been legally living and working in the U.S. under humanitarian parole are at risk of deportation while their legal challenges continue.

A Blow to Humanitarian Protections

Humanitarian parole, expanded under President Joe Biden, allowed migrants fleeing unstable or dangerous conditions in their home countries to temporarily live and work in the U.S., provided they had a private sponsor. The program had become a critical relief measure for individuals escaping authoritarian regimes, economic collapse, or gang violence.

The Supreme Court’s order did not include a written opinion from the majority but did note the dissent of Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson. In a sharply worded dissent, the two justices criticized the Court for enabling "devastating consequences" for migrants whose legal status is now in limbo.

“This decision will have the lives of half a million migrants unravel all around us before the courts decide their legal claims,” they wrote, emphasizing the human cost of revoking protections before the full legal process is complete.

A Win for Trump’s Immigration Agenda

The ruling is a major legal victory for former President Donald Trump, who has made immigration enforcement a centerpiece of both his previous administration and current presidential campaign. On his first day back in office, Trump signed an executive order terminating the humanitarian parole programs expanded under Biden, citing concerns about national security and what he has called “loopholes” in immigration law.

Republican leaders and red-state attorneys general had long argued that the Biden administration overstepped its authority by using parole to admit large numbers of migrants who would not otherwise qualify for entry under existing immigration law.

Friday’s order marks the second major Supreme Court decision favoring Trump’s immigration policies in recent months. Earlier, the Court allowed the administration to roll back Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for approximately 350,000 Venezuelan immigrants, another protective status that had shielded migrants from deportation.

Legal Battle Continues

Although the Supreme Court lifted the pause on Trump's policy, the broader legal battle is far from over. The case will now return to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston for a full review.

Immigrant advocacy groups and legal teams representing affected migrants had previously secured a temporary injunction from a federal judge in Massachusetts. That ruling found that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem lacked the legal authority to terminate parole for hundreds of thousands of individuals without providing individualized assessments—a legal safeguard required under immigration law.

In response, Solicitor General D. John Sauer filed an emergency application to the Supreme Court, arguing that the Secretary has "broad discretion over categories of immigration determinations" and warning that the lower court’s ruling had “needlessly disrupted” policies designed to discourage illegal border crossings.

Human Impact and Uncertainty Ahead

For the hundreds of thousands of immigrants impacted by Friday’s ruling, the future is now uncertain. Many had built lives in the U.S., found employment, enrolled children in school, and paid taxes while awaiting more permanent legal solutions. Without parole protections, they now face the threat of detention or deportation.

Attorneys for the migrants described the ruling as “the largest mass illegalization event in modern American history” and vowed to continue fighting in court.

Immigration advocates also expressed concern that the decision could set a precedent for future administrations to use broad executive powers to strip migrants of legal protections without due process.

As the case heads back to the appeals court, the national debate over immigration policy remains as polarized as ever—with the human toll of these legal battles increasingly at the center of the conversation.