A Massachusetts federal judge stopped the Trump administration late Monday from yanking legal status from more than 530,000 Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan nationals who were brought into the US under a controversial Biden administration program.
Boston US District Judge Indira Talwani, an Obama appointee, ruled that the migrants are entitled to a case-by-case review and declined to put her decision on hold while the Trump administration appeals it.
"The early termination, without any case-by-case justification, of legal status for noncitizens who have complied with DHS programs and entered the country lawfully undermines the rule of law," Talwani wrote in a 41-page ruling. "The court finds the balance of equities and public interest weigh in favor of preliminary relief."
At issue was the Biden administration's Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela (CHNV) mass humanitarian parole program, which gave nationals from those Latin American countries a path to legal status in the US.
The Department of Homeland Security announced the program in early 2023.
Since then, an estimated 110,240 Cubans, 211,040 Haitians, 93,080 Nicaraguans and 117,320 Venezuelans were granted parole -- or temporary permission -- to stay in the US under the CHNV program.
...
The Biden administration had argued the program would reduce the inflow of migrants across the southern border and allow for better vetting.
Border crossings have dropped 95% -- and that's not an estimate, that's the actual published number -- so this measure, supposedly pushed by Biden to help vet border crossers, is simply no longer necessary, even according to Biden's claimed reasons for pushing it.
This judge doesn't care. Because, just like Biden, she's a liar. She just wants open borders, period.
At one point this past July, the program was paused due to widespread fraud concerns after an internal probe found that more than 100,000 applicants for the program were backed by about 3,200 "serial sponsors." It was restarted last August.
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Encounters at the southwest border dropped to 11,017 in March, down 94.2% from the 189,359 encounters during March of 2024, according to data from US Customs and Border Patrol.
Okay, 94.2%. So I exaggerated by 0.8%.
Find someone who loves you the way Democrat senators love illegal alien MS-13 gang members.
Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen from Maryland wrote to El Salvadoran diplomats to "urgently request" meeting with the country's president, Nayib Bukele, to discuss the potential return of a former Maryland resident, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was deported to the Central American nation by the Trump administration.
A federal judge ruled Garcia should be returned to the U.S., a decision that was unanimously upheld by the Supreme Court last week.
"If Kilmar is not home by midweek -- I plan to travel to El Salvador this week to check on his condition and discuss his release," Van Hollen wrote in a letter address to El Salvador's ambassador to Washington.
El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said during a Monday Oval Office meeting that he did not intend to return Kilmar to the U.S.
Oooh, what a tough guy. Chris Hollen is going to show off his muscles and scare them all into compliance.
Will Chamberlain reminds everyone that Kilmar Abrego Garcia is an illegal alien, period, and was proven to be an MS-13 gang member.
And also, he completely lied about being threatened by gangs. As I keep saying, this is a standard lie illegals are coached to tell. If they can't claim their government is oppressive, they're told to go to the next-best thing and claim they're being oppressed by "gangs."
Will Chamberlain
@willchamberlain
The story of Kilmar Abrego Garcia is not about the wrongful deportation of a Maryland father. It's about the abuse of our immigration system by illegal migrants, the lawyers who help them lie, and the nonprofits who agitate to keep them in the country.
Abrego Garcia crossed into our country illegally in 2012 - by his own admission. He did not apply for asylum. He didn't show up at an embassy or at a port of entry to go through any kind of legal process. He just crossed.
Finally, the authorities found him in 2019, after he'd been living in the country illegally for seven years. He was set to be deported. He asked for bond - it was denied, because there was evidence that he was a member of MS-13, and he could not prove that he was not a danger to the community.
And yet somehow, this longtime illegal alien, who was denied bond, managed to avoid being deported. How?
By concocting what, by any objective measure, looks like a preposterous set of lies.
Abrego Garcia claimed that if he were deported, his life would be in danger. You see, he claims that he fled El Salvador in 2011 because his mother's pupusa business was being extorted by the Eighteenth Street Gang. And yes, that pupusa business closed, but no matter - the Eighteenth Street Gang was still threatening to kill him in 2019, he claimed.
Sure, he had no corroborating evidence whatsoever to back up his fantastical and highly convenient claims. No matter - an immigration judge said ok, granted him withholding of removal, and sent this removable illegal alien - who another immigration judge had found was likely in MS-13 - back into our community.
What on earth happened here? The indictment of our immigration system is not that now, 13 years after his initial illegal crossing, Abrego Garcia has finally been returned to his home country. The scandal is that he was able to stay here so long illegally - and that EVEN AFTER HE WAS DETAINED BY ICE, he managed to stay in the country for six further years. Somehow, on the verge of being sent home, he managed to figure out exactly what to say to stay in the country.
This was always a sham. And if the Democrats want to make him a martyr, Republicans should lean in. Because he's not an example of how our country wrongs illegal aliens; he's an example of how illegal aliens and their lawyers make a mockery of our country.
Links for his claims are in this thread.