President Donald Trump scored a massive victory at the Supreme Court, even getting traditionally liberal justices in his favor. The court lifted a lower court injunction that was preventing the president from stripping the protected legal status of hundreds of thousands of migrants currently residing in the United States.
Advertisement
The decision was 8–1 in favor of what the president wanted, with the only dissent coming from Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, whom former President Joe Biden appointed.
“The decision clears the way for the Trump administration to move forward with its plans to terminate Biden-era Temporary Protected Status (TPS) protections for roughly 300,000 Venezuelan migrants living in the U.S. and allows the administration to move forward with plans to immediately remove these migrants, which lawyers for the administration argued they should be able to do,” the report said.
When U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer spoke before the Supreme Court this month, he said the lower court had overstepped its bounds.
“The district court’s reasoning is untenable,” he said, saying that the program “implicates particularly discretionary, sensitive, and foreign-policy-laden judgments of the Executive Branch regarding immigration policy.”
Advertisement
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem revoked the Temporary Protected Status in a February memo with an effective date in April.
“On October 3, 2023, Venezuela was newly designated for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) due to extraordinary and temporary conditions preventing the safe return of Venezuelan nationals. After reviewing current country conditions and consulting with appropriate U.S. Government agencies, the Secretary of Homeland Security has determined that Venezuela no longer meets the conditions for the 2023 designation. Specifically, it has been determined that it is contrary to the national interest to permit the covered Venezuelan nationals to remain temporarily in the United States. Therefore, the 2023 TPS designation of Venezuela is being terminated,” the memo said.
Advertisement
“On March 9, 2021, then Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas designated Venezuela for TPS based on his determination that there existed “extraordinary and temporary conditions” in Venezuela that prevented nationals of Venezuela from returning in safety and that permitting such aliens to remain temporarily in the United States is not contrary to the U.S. national interest,” it said.
“On September 8, 2022, then Secretary Mayorkas extended the Venezuela 2021 TPS designation for 18 months,” the memo said. “On October 3, 2023, Secretary Mayorkas extended the Venezuela 2021 TPS designation for another 18 months with an expiration date of September 10, 2025, and separately newly designated Venezuela for 18 months, a decision the former Secretary called a ‘redesignation’ (Venezuela 2023 designation) with an expiration of April 2, 2025, resulting in two separate and concurrent Venezuela TPS designations. See Extension and Redesignation of Venezuela for Temporary Protected Status.”
“On January 17, 2025, Secretary Mayorkas issued a notice extending the 2023 designation of Venezuela for TPS for 18 months. The notice was based on then Secretary Mayorkas’s January 10, 2025 determination that the conditions for the designation continued to be met. See INA 244(b)(3)(A), (C), 8 U.S.C. 1254a(b)(3)(A), (C). In the January 2025 notice, Secretary Mayorkas did not expressly extend or terminate the 2021 Venezuela designation. Instead, the notice allowed for a consolidation of filing processes such that all eligible Venezuela TPS beneficiaries (whether under the 2021 or 2023 designations) could obtain TPS through the same extension date of October 2, 2026,” the DHS memo said.
“On January 28, 2025, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem vacated former Secretary Mayorkas’s January 10, 2025 decision, restoring the status quo that preceded that decision,” it said.
U.S. District Judge Edward Chen of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California halted Noem’s plan in March, saying that the portrayal of the migrants as possible criminals was “baseless and smacks of racism.”
Separately, the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to reinstate a Florida law that would have allowed officials there to prosecute migrants who entered the state illegally.
The court did not explain its ruling, which also noted the absence of any dissenting opinions. The order was issued in response to an emergency application.
Florida’s immigration law, SB 4-C, criminalizes entering the state after illegally entering the U.S. and evading immigration authorities. Last year, the Supreme Court allowed a similar law in Texas to take effect.
U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams, an Obama appointee, issued an indefinite injunction against the law, finding it likely preempted by federal immigration law and unconstitutional.
Florida appealed to the Supreme Court last month after a three-judge panel from the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the injunction.
