May 19 (UPI) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Trump administration to revoke special legal protections for nearly 350,000 Venezuelan nationals living in the United States temporarily.
Homeland Security had asked the justices to lift a lower court’s injunction that blocked Secretary Kristi Noem’s revocations of the Temporary Protected Status program, or TPS.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said she would deny emergency relief.
The brief order said Northern California district court order is “stayed pending the disposition of the appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari, if such a writ is timely sought.”
The TPS program, created in 1990, provides temporary legal status and work authorization to nationals from countries experiencing armed conflict, natural disasters or other extraordinary conditions.
On Feb. 3, Noem terminated the designation, which began in March 2021 and was extended by the Biden administration in October 2023. On April 7, protected Venezuelans were to lose their government-issued work permits and deportation protections.
Another 250,000 immigrants from the Central American country who arrived before 2023 will lose their status in September.
In all, about eight million people have left Venezuela since 2014 due to political persecution, violence, and a lack of food and access to essential services. In 2023, Nicolás Maduro was elected in a race contested as fraudulent by the opposition and outside observers.
The Venezuelan program is the largest TPS designation.
At least 60 days before a TPS designation expires, the agency’s secretary is required to review the conditions in a country designated for TPS to determine whether the conditions supporting the designation continue to be met.
On March 30, District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco blocked the action and said the decision to terminate the TPS program for the Venezuelans appeared to be “predicated on negative stereotypes.” The appointee of President Barack Obama said the order was “motivated by unconstitutional animus” and unlikely to prevail in a court’s final decision.
On April 15, Massachusetts-based U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, also appointed by Obama, separately temporarily blocked a TPS revocation of about 532,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela in the United States. It was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court
Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in the administration’s emergency appeal of the decision by Chen: “So long as the order is in effect, the secretary must permit hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan nationals to remain in the country, notwithstanding her reasoned determination that doing so is ‘contrary to the national interest.'”
Seven Venezuelan nationals covered by TPS and a group that represents others challenged the change.
Lawyers for TPS beneficiaries told the Supreme Court in a filing: “Staying the district court’s order would cause far more harm than it would stop. It would radically shift the status quo, stripping plaintiffs of their legal status and requiring them to return to a country the State Department still deems too dangerous even to visit.”
The U.S. State Department advises Americans not to travel to Venezuela, the highest travel advisory level.
At the end of Trump’s first term, officials described Venezuela as “the worst humanitarian crisis in the Western Hemisphere.” A different form of temporary relief to some of its migrants was granted.
This litigation is separate from lawsuits involving Trump’s use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members. The Supreme Court ruled Friday again against the administration, saying more notice is needed for people to challenge their removal under the act, which has been used during wars. In April, the justices paused deportations of any Venezuelans held in northern Texas.
