The Supreme Court is allowing the Trump administration to remove legal protections for 350,000 Venezuelans, clearing the way for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to include the migrants in their mass deportation program.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court lifted a lower court ruling that blocked the Trump administration from removing Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for the Venezuelan migrants. The Biden administration initially granted protected status to the migrants in 2021, finding that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s socialist regime had made it too dangerous to return them to their home country. He further extended TPS to Venezuelans in 2023 because of the horrors of Maduro’s regime, as more of them entered the U.S. illegally.
Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the lone dissenter in the Supreme Court’s 8-1 decision. With protected status lifted, the Trump administration could elect to deport the Venezuelans as part of its mass deportation campaign.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem rescinded the Biden administration’s extension of TPS in February. Weeks later, Obama-appointed federal judge Edward Chen halted Noem’s order, siding with a group of Venezuelan TPS beneficiaries and left-wing activists. The plaintiffs will still be able to challenge the TPS revocation in lower courts with Chen’s nationwide injunction is halted for the time being.
TPS grants legal protections to immigrants fleeing war-torn countries, natural disasters, and other crisis that make their home nations dangerous to live in. Under Maduro, Venezuelans have faced political repression and exorbitant levels of inflation leading to food crises and mass emigration.
Although it does not provide a path to citizenship, TPS allows immigrants to find work and avoid deportation. Conservatives have emphasized the temporary nature of TPS and abuse of the program, particularly under the Biden administration, as a means of perpetrating mass illegal immigration.
The Trump White House is attempting to pull off the most sweeping mass deportation program in American history after record levels of illegal immigration under former President Biden. Early on, federal law enforcement officials have highlighted their efforts to target violent criminals and gang members living in the U.S. illegally.