The Supreme Court on Friday allowed President Donald Trump’s administration to move forward with ending temporary legal protections for more than 300,000 Venezuelan migrants, reversing a lower-court ruling that had blocked the policy and setting up sweeping consequences for immigrant communities across the country.
In a brief emergency order, the justices granted the administration’s request to pause enforcement of a federal judge’s decision that found the government acted improperly in terminating Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Venezuelans.
The ruling means that DHS may now revoke protections that shielded Venezuelan migrants from deportation and permitted them to work legally in the United States, Newsweek reported.
The Court’s action marks a major victory for Trump, who has argued that TPS has been misapplied by prior administrations and extended beyond its original intent as a short-term humanitarian measure. The program, created by Congress in 1990, allows the executive branch to grant safe haven to foreign nationals from countries suffering from natural disasters, armed conflicts, or other extraordinary conditions.
While the case concerns Venezuelan nationals, immigration advocates warn that the Court’s order could set a precedent for other TPS-designated groups, including Haitians, Hondurans and Salvadorans. Advocacy organizations say thousands have already lost jobs, housing and community stability in the wake of the policy change.
“This ruling jeopardizes not just Venezuelan families, but the integrity of humanitarian protections altogether,” said Jorge Lowery of the National TPS Alliance. “We’re bracing for mass disruption in immigrant communities across the country.”
The Biden administration had originally expanded TPS for Venezuelans and Haitians, citing humanitarian conditions. Trump has long pledged to roll back those extensions, calling them unlawful expansions of executive power.
U.S. District Judge Edward Chen had previously found the Department of Homeland Security acted “with unprecedented haste and in an unprecedented manner … for the preordained purpose of expediting termination of Venezuela’s TPS.” A unanimous appellate panel also criticized the government’s actions, writing that DHS “made its decisions first and searched for a valid basis for those decisions second.”
The Supreme Court’s order halts those rulings and permits DHS to enforce the terminations immediately.
The order split the justices along ideological lines. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, issued a sharp dissent criticizing the majority for what she described as overreach on the Court’s emergency docket.
“I view today’s decision as yet another grave misuse of our emergency docket,” Jackson wrote. “This Court should have stayed its hand. Having opted instead to join the fray, the Court plainly misjudges the irreparable harm and balance-of-the-equities factors by privileging the bald assertion of unconstrained executive power over countless families’ pleas for the stability our Government has promised them.”
“Because, respectfully, I cannot abide our repeated, gratuitous, and harmful interference with cases pending in the lower courts while lives hang in the balance, I dissent,” she added.
The order applies only to Venezuelans and does not include Haitians, who were also part of the original litigation. With the ruling in place, DHS can move forward with removal proceedings for Venezuelan nationals whose TPS status has expired.
Portland-based immigration attorney Teresa Amaya said Friday that the ruling will sow confusion among her clients. “People don’t know whether to pack up their lives, whether their work permits are still valid, or whether ICE could come knocking next week,” she said.
Trump, who made border enforcement a central pillar of his presidency, has framed the rollback as part of a broader campaign to reassert executive control over immigration. His administration has also ordered reviews of other humanitarian programs that he claims have been abused.
Immigrant advocates, meanwhile, vowed to continue pressing their case in the lower courts despite Friday’s setback.
“We are not giving up,” Lowery said. “These families deserve stability, not whiplash from every change in administration.”
