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The US Supreme Court on the last weekday permitted the Trump administration to strip TPS benefits from over 300k Venezuelan migrants.

Court's Urgent Ruling

The justices enacted an temporary measure, which will be enforced as long as the legal proceedings are ongoing, freezing a decision by a district judge that had blocked the government from revoking temporary protected status (TPS) for the migrants from Venezuela.

The three liberal justices voiced disagreement.

Additional TPS Terminations

The executive branch has sought to revoke several immigration benefits that enable migrants to stay in the country and hold jobs lawfully, including revoking TPS for a combined 600k Venezuelan migrants and 500,000 Haitians who were granted protection during the presidency of Joe Biden.

TPS is granted in 18-month increments.

Earlier Judicial Intervention

In the spring, the supreme court reversed a interim ruling that concerned an additional 350k Venezuelan migrants whose legal status lapsed earlier this year.

The supreme court gave no reasoning at the time, which is standard in urgent court requests.

“The identical outcome that we decided in May is suitable here,” the court declared in an unattributed ruling.

Consequences for Venezuelans

Some protected individuals have been dismissed from work and housing while others have been taken into custody and removed after the judges intervened the first time, lawyers for the migrants informed the justices.

Judicial Dissent

“I regard today’s decision as another grave misuse of our emergency docket,” one justice commented. “Because, courteously, I cannot tolerate our repeated, unwarranted and detrimental meddling with cases pending in the lower courts while people's futures are at stake, I disagree.”

Origins of the Program

Congress introduced TPS in the early nineties to prevent deportations to states experiencing environmental catastrophes, internal conflict or further unsafe circumstances.

The designation can be awarded by the homeland security secretary.

District Judge's Ruling

The district judge determined that the immigration agency acted “with unusual rapidity and in an unprecedented manner … for the fixed intention of expediting termination of Venezuela’s TPS benefits.”

In prior denying the government's emergency appeal, a different jurist wrote for a unified appeals court that the trial court had concluded that DHS made its “rulings beforehand and sought legal grounds for those decisions afterward”.

Courtroom Debate

The administration’s top supreme court lawyer had argued in the new court filing that the justices’ May order should also apply to the present litigation.

“This case is recognized by the court and involves the increasingly familiar and unacceptable situation of lower courts flouting this court’s rulings on the emergency docket,” the attorney wrote.

The consequence, he said, is that the “recent decision, similar to the previous one, blocked the vacatur and termination of TPS concerning over 300,000 migrants based on baseless claims”.