The Supreme Court on Friday again cleared the way for the Trump administration to strip temporary legal protections from hundreds of thousands of immigrants, pushing the total number of people who could be newly exposed to deportation to nearly 1 million.
The justices lifted a lower-court order that kept humanitarian parole protections in place for more than 500,000 migrants from four countries: Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. The court has also allowed the administration to revoke temporary legal status from about 350,000 Venezuelan migrants in another case.
Republican President Donald Trump promised on the campaign trail to deport millions of people, and in office has sought to dismantle Biden administration polices that created ways for migrants to live legally in the U.S.
Trump amplified false rumors that Haitian immigrants in Ohio with legal status under the humanitarian parole program were abducting and eating pets during his only debate with President Joe Biden, according to court documents.
His administration filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court after a federal judge in Boston blocked the administration’s push to end the program.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in dissent that the effect of the court’s order is “to have the lives of half a million migrants unravel all around us before the courts decide their legal claims.” Justice Sonia Sotomayor joined the dissent.
