The United States Supreme Court has permitted the Trump administration to proceed—at least temporarily—with plans to revoke legal status from more than half a million migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.
The ruling threatens the future of around 532,000 individuals who entered the US under a “parole” scheme introduced by former President Joe Biden. That programme granted two-year temporary entry to up to 30,000 migrants per month from the four nations, all of which face serious human rights issues.
President Donald Trump, known for his hardline stance on immigration, has moved to dismantle these protections. His administration requested the Supreme Court to lift a lower court’s injunction that had blocked efforts to end the programme.
On Friday, the conservative-majority court agreed, issuing an unsigned order with no accompanying explanation. The decision grants a stay on the lower court’s ruling, allowing the Trump administration to resume its plans while legal proceedings continue.
However, Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor strongly dissented, warning of the “devastating consequences” that could follow. They stressed that nearly half a million non-citizens could face severe hardship if stripped of their legal protection before their cases are fully heard.
In their dissent, the justices wrote that affected migrants now face a painful dilemma: return to countries plagued by violence and instability—risking family separation and abandoning potential legal remedies—or remain in the US and face the risk of immediate deportation and its serious implications.
Lower courts had initially blocked the administration’s move, arguing that it was based on a misinterpretation of immigration law.
Trump, who is campaigning on a promise to remove millions of undocumented migrants from the US, has already implemented several controversial measures. Among them was the use of a little-known wartime law to transport hundreds of suspected Venezuelan gang members to a prison in El Salvador.
