Supreme Court Allows Trump Administration to End Biden-Era Migrant Program for Now

The Supreme Court on Friday allowed the Trump administration, for now, to revoke a Biden-era humanitarian program intended to give temporary residency to more than 500,000 immigrants from countries facing war and political turmoil.

The court’s order was unsigned and provided no reasoning, which is typical when the justices rule on emergency applications. It granted a request that will allow the administration to act even as an appeals court considers the case and, potentially, the justices review it again.

The ruling comes as the White House is stepping up pressure on the Department of Homeland Security to increase the pace of deportations and could speed efforts to remove thousands of migrants living legally in the United States.

The immediate practical impact of the court’s order, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in a dissent joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, will have “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 ruling, which exposes some migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Haiti to possible deportation, is the latest in a series of emergency orders by the justices in recent weeks responding to a flurry of applications asking the court to weigh in on the administration’s attempts to unwind Biden-era immigration policies.

The migrants “now face two unbearable options,” Justice Jackson wrote. On the one hand, they could choose to leave the United States and return to the dangers they had fled. On the other, she wrote, “they could remain in the United States after parole termination and risk imminent removal at the hands of government agents, along with its serious attendant consequences,” including arrest and detention.