The US Supreme Court on Friday ruled in favour of US President Donald Trump, allowing his administration to revoke temporary legal status granted to over 500,000 immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.The court approved an emergency request by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, effectively halting a Biden-era programme that had granted humanitarian parole to nationals from those four countries. The decision puts hundreds of thousands at risk of deportation and strips them of the ability to legally work or stay in the country.Liberal Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor dissented. Jackson wrote, “The court had failed to take into account the devastating consequences of allowing the government to precipitously upend the lives and livelihoods of nearly half a million noncitizens while their legal claims are pending.”The Biden administration’s CHNV parole programme, started in 2022 by then-Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, allowed individuals who passed background checks and had sponsors in the US to stay for up to two years. It aimed to manage the growing influx at the southern border.But the Department of Homeland Security announced in October 2024 that it would not extend the two-year parole period once it expired. Noem’s move to end the policy was challenged by impacted individuals and rights groups like the Haitian Bridge Alliance.They warned that if the Trump administration’s action is upheld, those granted parole would “become undocumented, legally unemployable, and subject to mass expulsion.”A lower court judge, Indira Talwani in Massachusetts, had earlier ruled that the administration could not cancel the status of each person without individual review. However, the Supreme Court’s latest ruling freezes that decision while litigation continues.Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued in court filings that Talwani lacked the authority to intervene, stating that Noem was entitled under federal immigration law to revoke the programme. He noted that the same law gave Mayorkas the discretion to launch it in the first place.The development comes amid broader tensions over immigration enforcement. The Department of Homeland Security also revealed that up to 500 so-called “sanctuary jurisdictions” might lose federal funding for failing to comply with immigration laws.Meanwhile, Trump’s Friday schedule included an Oval Office farewell for billionaire Elon Musk and a Pennsylvania rally where he’s expected to promote a new investment by Japan-based Nippon Steel in US Steel.
