A federal judge in Boston ruled on Tuesday that the Trump administration had unlawfully terminated the legal status of tens of thousands of migrants who had been allowed to temporarily live and work in the United States if they announced their presence using an app introduced by the Biden administration.
In a 25-page opinion, Judge Allison D. Burroughs of the Federal District Court for the District of Massachusetts, ordered the Trump administration to reverse course, after it last April instructed as many as 900,000 migrants who had used the app to leave “immediately.”
Judge Burroughs said her order applied to those individuals who used the app between May 2023 and January 2025 and who remain in the United States. Tens of thousands of people who received the notice have already left the United States voluntarily or been deported.
Judge Burroughs concluded that the Trump administration had issued the blanket order to scores of people, notably from Venezuela, Cuba and Haiti, without any rationale for the abrupt about-face.
The case focused on the CBP One application, introduced in 2023 to help organize the chaotic crush of arrivals at the southwestern border under President Joseph R. Biden.
Migrants were allowed to sign up through the app and make appointments for inspection at ports of entry. After making the appointment, migrants were typically cleared into the country on temporary parole status, a form of protection from deportation that is sometimes extended to people fleeing war or natural disaster and that the administration has the discretion to extend under the law.
Judge Burroughs reasoned that the law generally requires the government to determine that a specific group granted temporary parole no longer needs that support before it can be revoked.
“In other words, parole terminates only if the condition precedent has been satisfied,” she wrote.
In August, a group of migrants affected by the abrupt terminations sued, arguing they had followed the rules and conditions at the time they registered with the government, generally receiving two years of work authorization and protection from being deported.
When the Trump administration revoked that status last year, it informed anyone who received the message that their status would be considered terminated in seven days. “It is time for you to leave the United States,” the message stated, adding to anyone who tried to remain in the country that “the federal government will find you.”
“Today’s ruling is a clear rejection of an administration that has tried to erase lawful status for hundreds of thousands of people with the click of a button,” said Skye Perryman, the president of Democracy Forward, a legal group that helped represent the migrants. “Our clients followed the law: They waited, registered, were inspected and were granted parole under the law.
A spokesman for the Homeland Security Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Many other people who had scheduled future appointments to enter the United States through the app saw their appointments canceled on the first day of President Trump’s second term, when he immediately shuttered the CBP One process.
On Monday, a judge in a similar case in California certified a class of individuals who had not had the opportunity to present at a legal port of entry and cross the border because their appointments had been suddenly canceled.
Zach Montague is a Times reporter covering the federal courts, including the legal disputes over the Trump administration’s agenda.
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