The Supreme Court in an emergency order on Monday allowed the Trump administration to strip legal protections the Biden administration gave to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans, over the public dissent of one of the court’s liberal justices.
The Trump administration in January said it would move to revoke Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Venezuelans — lifting protections that bar deportation due to civil unrest and dangerous conditions in a migrant’s home country.
The Justice Department appealed to the Supreme Court after a San Francisco-based federal district judge put the efforts on hold, finding they “appear predicated on negative stereotypes.”
Only Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, former President Biden’s appointee to the court, publicly dissented from Monday’s order to lift that judge’s block. Neither Jackson nor the majority explained their decision.
It marks another significant legal victory for the Trump administration, which has brought a flurry of emergency appeals to the Supreme Court after district judges across the country blocked President Trump’s various policies.
The court on Friday handed the administration a loss, however, by blocking it from swiftly deporting a group of Venezuelan migrants it claims are gang members.
In announcing the move, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said she “vacated” an earlier designation of TPS by her predecessor, complaining the Biden administration had sought to “tie our hands.”
“For decades, Secretaries across administrations have accordingly terminated TPS designations when, in their judgment, the statutory conditions no longer warrant them. That is exactly what Secretary Noem did here,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote to the justices.
It spurred a suit from the National TPS Alliance, who said Noem had no power to simply unwind the earlier designation, arguing she must go through the process of evaluating conditions in the country and providing notice of the decision.
The administration has argued the courts have no authority to review the matter, casting any intervention as an intrusion on the executive branch’s control over foreign affairs. But the National TPS Alliance has warned that position would hand over unchecked power.
“They could designate Mexico for fifty years to accomplish mass legalization, or China and India to sweeten a trade deal,” the group’s lawyers wrote in court filings.
“The government believes such blatantly unlawful actions would be unreviewable ‘determinations.’ The Court should not so radically expand the Secretary’s powers, especially on the emergency docket,” they continued.
While the case will only directly affect roughly 300,000 Venezuelans whose protections would otherwise have expired in April, it will also have an impact on another roughly 300,000 whose protections are set to expire in September due to Noem’s actions.
A lower court judge previously blocked Noem’s vacatur from taking effect, writing that her decision “smacks of racism” after making a series of demeaning comments about Venezuelans.
California-based U.S. District Judge Edward Chen determined the Trump administration did not follow proper procedure for stripping TPS from those being deported, and that the administration was “motivated at least in part by animus.”
He noted that Noem repeatedly suggested Venezuelans were gang members or criminals.
“Generalization of criminality to the Venezuelan TPS population as a whole is baseless and smacks of racism predicated on generalized false stereotypes,” he wrote in his decision.
While Noem contended Venezuela no longer requires the protections, under the leadership of President Nicolás Maduro, the country has seen a massive exodus of its citizens. In addition to political unrest, the country is facing widespread food shortages.
In response to the court win, DHS initially referenced a different immigration program that the administration is likewise trying to topple while noting a gang largely associated with countries other than Venezuela. Shortly thereafter, it updated and corrected its response:
“Today’s SCOTUS decision is a win for the American people and the safety of our communities. The Biden administration exploited programs to let poorly vetted migrants into this country – from MS-13 gang members to known terrorists and murderers. The Trump administration is reinstituting integrity into our immigration system to keep our homeland and its people safe,” Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs, said in a statement.
MS-13 largely operates in Central America and primarily has Salvadoran membership, while Trump has designated Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua a foreign terrorist organization.
The administration appealed to the Supreme Court after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to lift Chen’s order halting the TPS vacatur.
The case now returns to the lower courts. The 9th Circuit has yet to issue its final ruling in the administration’s appeal, and Chen has meanwhile set a July 11 hearing on the administration’s bid to dismiss the lawsuit.
This story was updated at 5:57 p.m. EDT
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