WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Friday paved the way for the Trump administration to revoke temporary legal status for up to 600,000 Venezuelan immigrants, meaning some could ultimately be deported.
The court granted an emergency request filed by the Trump administration seeking to block a judge’s ruling that said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem failed to follow the correct process in revoking Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelans.
The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, in May granted an earlier emergency request filed by the Trump administration in the same case.
The latest filing came after California-based U.S. District Judge Edward Chen on Sept. 5 again ruled against the administration, this time in the form of a final decision rather than a preliminary one.
“Although the posture of the case has changed, the parties’ legal arguments and relative harms generally have not. The same result that we reached in May is appropriate here,” the court order said.
The court’s three liberal justices dissented.
One of them, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, wrote a dissenting opinion criticizing the court for once again granting an emergency request filed by the Trump administration, as it has done in 20 other cases.
“I cannot abide our repeated, gratuitous, and harmful interference with cases pending in the lower courts while lives hang in the balance, I dissent,” she wrote.
The Trump administration has argued that Chen’s latest ruling was effectively in defiance of the earlier Supreme Court decision. Lower courts had rejected that argument, noting that the high court had not offered an explanation for its earlier emergency ruling.
“We can only guess as to the court’s rationale when it provides none,” a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals noted.
The National TPS Alliance and individual Venezuelans challenged the Trump administration’s decision to revoke the protections.
The case focuses on a decision made at the tail end of the Biden administration to extend protections for Venezuelans under the federal Temporary Protected Status program.
Taking note of political instability in Venezuela, the Biden administration in March 2021 said Venezuelans were eligible for temporary protected status under the program, which has existed since 1990 to provide humanitarian relief to people from countries reeling from war, natural disasters or other catastrophes.
Applicants have legal status in the United States and can apply for work authorization for up to 18 months, subject to extensions.
The Biden administration protections were due to expire in October 2026.
Without that protection, affected people are subject to deportation via the normal legal process but can seek other avenues for remaining in the United States by, for example, claiming asylum.
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