The U.S. Supreme Court threw President Donald Trump a bone Monday after it made several rulings against him over the course of five days.
It ruled 8-1 to allow the Trump administration to revoke a special legal protection for 350,000 Venezuelan migrants, paving the way for them to be stripped of their work permits and face deportation.
The ruling was in response to one of 15 emergency appeals the Trump administration has made to the high court since January. Many appeals have not gone in Trump’s favor, and he has made his displeasure known, particularly over the court’s blocking of any deportations under the Alien Enemies Act outside a time of war.
Ketanji Brown Jackson, 54, was the only justice to dissent on Monday. She is the newest member of the court, appointed by former President Joe Biden in 2022.
Monday’s ruling overturns an extension granted by the Biden administration to protect hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants from deportation under the Temporary Protected Status program through Oct. 2026. Impacted migrants can still challenge the Trump administration in the lower courts, since it was elevated by an emergency appeal, but the Trump administration is free to nix the program in the meantime.
For Venezuelans, the Temporary Protected Status program was granted to anyone who faced persecution under Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s regime, which amounted to anyone who willingly fled the country.
Critics of Biden said that such a description is too broad and that Venezuela has since stabilized, making it safe to live in. Biden first offered TPS to Venezuelans in 2021 and extended it in January, during his final days in office.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem rescinded Biden’s extension the following month, but the issue was quickly challenged in federal court. U.S. District Judge Edward Chen, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, halted Noem’s order and issued a nationwide injunction on status removals.
Chen said he ruled in favor of Venezuelan plaintiffs because the administration’s decision was based on racial animus. Trump’s solicitor general, John Sauer, said in his appeal to the Supreme Court that the law establishing the Temporary Protected Status program gave the executive branch complete control over which groups or individuals should receive it.
Trump’s team, led by Sauer, has not challenged the program’s legality. It was enacted by Congress in 1990 and signed into law by George H.W. Bush to aid those impacted by national disasters, armed conflicts, or other extraordinary instabilities. Noem said in January that the special status was no longer appropriate for Venezuelans because conditions had improved in the South American country.
Noem added that the stateside presence of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua meant accepting Venezuelans was “contrary to the national interest,” in part because criminals might disguise themselves as refugees to enter the country. However, those convicted of a crime in their home country are not eligible for the TPS program.
Without TPS, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants living and working in the U.S. legally will see their way of living uprooted overnight. TPS recipients have high labor force participation and pay income and sales taxes. Many contribute to Social Security and Medicare, even though they will likely never qualify for the benefits, says the Economic Policy Institute.
There has been a spike in nationwide injunctions in MAGA 2.0 as Trump tests the limits of his power.
The Trump administration has since challenged the legality of nationwide injunctions in another emergency appeal to the high court. The DOJ argues a single judge should not be permitted to issue an order that impacts the entire nation unilaterally, but that argument has faced pushback from some in the court’s conservative bloc and has been outright mocked by its more liberal members.
Oral arguments have commenced on the legality of national injunctions, but no ruling has been made. The injunction that sparked the administration’s emergency appeal revolves around whether Trump can remove birthright citizenship, which is enshrined in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, through an executive order.
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