Supreme Court allows Trump to strip legal protections from 350,000 Venezuelans who risk deportation

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Trump administration to strip legal protections from 350,000 Venezuelans, potentially exposing them to deportation.

The court’s order, with only one noted dissent, puts on hold a ruling from a federal judge in San Francisco that kept in place Temporary Protected Status for the Venezuelans that would have otherwise expired last month. The justices provided no rationale, which is common in emergency appeals.

The status allows people already in the United States to live and work legally because their native countries are deemed unsafe for return due to natural disaster or civil strife.

The high court’s order appears to be the “single largest action in modern American history stripping any group of non-citizens of immigration status,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, one of the attorneys for Venezuelan migrants.

“This decision will force families to be in an impossible position either choosing to survive or choosing stability,” said Cecilia Gonzalez Herrera, who sued to try and stop the Trump administration from revoking legal protections from her and others like her.

“Venezuelans are not criminals,” Gonzalez Herrera said.

“We all deserve the chance to thrive without being sent back to danger,” she said.

The ramifications for the hundreds of thousands of people affected aren’t yet clear, Arulanantham said.

Mariana Moleros, her husband and their daughter left their native Venezuela in September 2005 after receiving death threats for their open political opposition to the socialist government. They came to the United States hoping to find peace and protection and requested asylum, but their application was denied.

They were temporarily granted TPS but now they live in fear again — fear of being detained and deported to a country where they don’t feel safe.

“Today we are all exposed to being imprisoned in Venezuela if the U.S. return us,” said Moleros, a 44-year-old Venezuelan attorney who lives in Florida. “They should not deport someone who is at risk of being assassinated, torture and incarcerated.”

A federal appeals court had earlier rejected the administration’s request to put the order on hold while the lawsuit continues. A hearing is set for next week in front of U.S. District Judge Edward Chen, who had paused the administration’s plans.

In a statement, Homeland Security called the court’s decision a “win for the American people and the safety of our communities” and said the Biden administration “exploited programs to let poorly vetted migrants into this country.”

“The Trump administration is reinstituting integrity into our immigration system to keep our homeland and its people safe,” said spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin.

The case is the latest in a string of emergency appeals President Donald Trump’s administration has made to the Supreme Court, many of them related to immigration and involving Venezuela. Last week, the government asked the court to allow it to end humanitarian parole for hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, setting them up for potential deportation as well.

The high court also has been involved in slowing Trump’s 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.

The complex economic and political crisis in Venezuela has driven more than 7.7 million people to leave the South American nation since 2013. Venezuela’s most recent economic troubles pushed year-over-year inflation in April to 172%. The latest chapter even prompted President Nicolás Maduro to declare an “economic emergency” last month. Maduro, whose reelection last year to a third term has been condemned internationally as illegitimate, also has cracked down on his political opponents.

In the dispute over TPS, the administration has moved aggressively to withdraw various protections that have allowed immigrants to remain in the country, including ending the temporary protected status for a total of 600,000 Venezuelans and 500,000 Haitians. That status is granted in 18-month increments. Venezuela was first designated for TPS in 2021; Haiti, in 2010.

Last week, DHS announced that TPS for Afghanistan, first provided in 2022, would end in mid-July.

The protections for Venezuelans had been set to expire April 7, but Chen found that the expiration threatened to severely disrupt the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and could cost billions in lost economic activity.

Chen, who was appointed to the bench by Democratic President Barack Obama, found the government hadn’t shown any harm caused by keeping the program alive.

But Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote on behalf of the administration that Chen’s order impermissibly interferes with the administration’s power over immigration and foreign affairs.

In addition, Sauer told the justices, people affected by ending the protected status might have other legal options to try to remain in the country because the “decision to terminate TPS is not equivalent to a final removal order.”

Congress created TPS in 1990 to prevent deportations to countries suffering from natural disasters or civil strife.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said she would have rejected the administration’s emergency appeal.

Chicago weighs in

Immigration lawyers and Chicago City Council members responded to the news on Monday, fearing that already traumatized Venezuelans who fled violence and political persecution back home now face the threat of deportation with no due process.

“It is sad what’s happening in our country. The dehumanization. The criminalization of people under the Trump administration,” said 25th Ward Alderman Byron Sigcho-Lopez, calling the ruling wrong and inhumane.  

“These are families. I think that we object to the criminalization of people who are trying just to survive.”

Local advocates for Venezuelan migrants fear Monday’s ruling will pave the way for mass deportations.

“We are deeply saddened and disappointed by [Monday’s] Supreme Court ruling,” said the immigration specialists at Chicago’s Ahlgren Law, pointing to still pending litigation. 

“It’s decision today means that all the plaintiffs will remain undocumented and face the threat of imminent deportation while the litigation remains pending before the 9^th Circuit and eventually the Supreme Court.”