A federal appeals court ruled on Friday to allow the Trump administration to go forward with stripping protections away from around 430,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.

A stay had been issued by a district court.

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“We recognize the risks of irreparable harm persuasively laid out in the district court’s order: that parolees who lawfully arrived in this country were suddenly forced to choose between leaving in less than a month — a choice that potentially includes being separated from their families, communities, and lawful employment and returning to dangers in their home countries,” the judges wrote.

“But absent a strong showing of likelihood of success on the merits, the risk of such irreparable harms cannot, by itself, support a stay,” they added.

With the ruling, the appeals court will lift the stay issued by the district court and allow the Trump administration to target thousands of migrants for deportation.

Esther Sung, the legal director of Justice Action Center and a co-counsel in the case, says the decision will “hurt everyone.”

“People who came here from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela did everything the government asked of them, and the Trump administration cruelly and nonsensically failed to hold up the government’s end of the bargain,” Sung said. “While we are deeply disappointed by this decision, we will continue to advocate zealously for our clients and class members as the litigation continues.”

The Justice Department had argued that it has the power to revoke the temporary protections and that the Department of Homeland Security should be able to do so without court interference.

“The Secretary’s discretionary rescission of a discretionary benefit should have been the end of the matter,” lawyers for the government wrote in their brief.

But plaintiffs argued that DHS Secretary Kristi Noem needed to end protections individually and not across the board.

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“The district court applied the law correctly and did not abuse its discretion when it concluded that Secretary Noem’s action inflicted irreparable injury on the class members (among others) and that the public interest and balance of the equities tip sharply in favor of preliminary relief,” attorneys for the plaintiffs wrote in a brief.

President Donald Trump’s administration aims to deport a record number of people. The administration has sought court rulings, more detention centers, and more immigration officers and resources for them to contribute to that goal.