America's Highest Court Permits Trump to Terminate TPS for Venezuelan Migrants

The US Supreme Court on the last weekday gave the green light to the former president's government to eliminate legal protections from more than 300,000 Venezuelan migrants.

Emergency Order Issued

The court members enacted an emergency order, which will be enforced for the duration of the litigation are ongoing, freezing a decision by a district judge that had blocked the government from ending temporary protected status (TPS) for the migrants from Venezuela.

The dissenting members voiced disagreement.

Wider Protection Revocations

The Trump government has acted to eliminate various protections that permit foreign nationals to live in America and hold jobs lawfully, including ending TPS for a aggregate 600,000 Venezuelans and half a million Haitian nationals who were given legal status under the Biden administration.

TPS is granted in 18-month increments.

Previous Court Action

In the spring, the justices set aside a interim ruling that impacted a further 350,000 Venezuelan migrants whose legal status lapsed earlier this year.

The high court gave no reasoning at the time, which is typical in urgent court requests.

“The identical outcome that we arrived at in May is fitting here,” the court stated in an anonymous decision.

Consequences for Venezuelans

Some Venezuelans have become unemployed and residences while additional individuals have been detained and removed after the judges intervened the prior occasion, attorneys representing Venezuelans informed the justices.

Opposing Views

“I regard today’s decision as an additional improper use of our emergency docket,” one justice stated. “Because, courteously, I cannot tolerate our ongoing, unwarranted and detrimental meddling with active legal proceedings while lives hang in the balance, I dissent.”

History of Protected Status

Congress created TPS in 1990 to prevent deportations to states experiencing calamities, civil strife or additional hazardous situations.

The designation can be awarded by the head of DHS.

District Judge's Ruling

The trial court judge ruled that the immigration agency acted “with unprecedented haste and in an atypical way … for the preordained purpose of accelerating the revocation of Venezuela’s TPS status.”

In earlier dismissing the Trump team's interim application, another judge represented a unanimous three-judge appellate panel that the lower court had found that DHS made its “decisions first and sought legal grounds for those decisions second”.

Judicial Reasoning

The administration’s top supreme court lawyer had contended in the recent court documents that the prior decision should similarly affect the present litigation.

“This case is familiar to the court and involves the growing trend and untenable situation of district courts disregarding this court’s rulings on the emergency docket,” the lawyer declared.

The result, he said, is that the “new order, similar to the old one, blocked the nullification and conclusion of TPS affecting in excess of 300,000 migrants based on meritless legal theories”.