Supreme Court allows Trump to strip legal protections from 350,000
Venezuelans who risk deportation
[May 20, 2025]
By MARK SHERMAN
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Trump
administration to strip legal protections from 350,000 Venezuelans,
potentially exposing them to deportation.
The court's order, with only one noted dissent, puts on hold a ruling
from a federal judge in San Francisco that kept in place Temporary
Protected Status for the Venezuelans that would have otherwise expired
last month. The justices provided no rationale, which is common in
emergency appeals.
The status allows people already in the United States to live and work
legally because their native countries are deemed unsafe for return due
to natural disaster or civil strife.
The high court's order appears to be the “single largest action in
modern American history stripping any group of non-citizens of
immigration status,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, one of the attorneys for
Venezuelan migrants.
“This decision will force families to be in an impossible position
either choosing to survive or choosing stability,” said Cecilia Gonzalez
Herrera, who sued to try and stop the Trump administration from revoking
legal protections from her and others like her.
“Venezuelans are not criminals,” Gonzalez Herrera said.
“We all deserve the chance to thrive without being sent back to danger,”
she said.
The ramifications for the hundreds of thousands of people affected
aren’t yet clear, Arulanantham said.
Mariana Moleros, her husband and their daughter left their native
Venezuela in September 2005 after receiving death threats for their open
political opposition to the socialist government. They came to the
United States hoping to find peace and protection and requested asylum,
but their application was denied.
They were temporarily granted TPS but now they live in fear again — fear
of being detained and deported to a country where they don’t feel safe.
“Today we are all exposed to being imprisoned in Venezuela if the U.S.
return us,” said Moleros, a 44-year-old Venezuelan attorney who lives in
Florida. “They should not deport someone who is at risk of being
assassinated, torture and incarcerated.”
A federal appeals court had earlier rejected the administration’s
request to put the order on hold while the lawsuit continues. A hearing
is set for next week in front of U.S. District Judge Edward Chen, who
had paused the administration's plans.
In a statement, Homeland Security called the court's decision a “win for
the American people and the safety of our communities" and said the
Biden administration “exploited programs to let poorly vetted migrants
into this country.”
“The Trump administration is reinstituting integrity into our
immigration system to keep our homeland and its people safe,” said
spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin.
The case is the latest in a string of emergency appeals President Donald
Trump's administration has made to the Supreme Court, many of them
related to immigration and involving Venezuela. Earlier this month, the
government asked the court to allow it to end humanitarian parole for
hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and
Venezuela, setting them up for potential deportation as well.
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The Supreme Court is pictured, Jan. 10, 2025, in Washington. (AP
Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
The high court also has been involved in slowing Trump’s efforts to
swiftly deport Venezuelans accused of being gang members to a prison
in El Salvador under an 18th century wartime law called the Alien
Enemies Act.
The complex economic and political crisis in Venezuela has driven
more than 7.7 million people to leave the South American nation
since 2013. Venezuela’s most recent economic troubles pushed
year-over-year inflation in April to 172%. The latest chapter even
prompted President Nicolás Maduro to declare an “economic emergency”
last month. Maduro, whose reelection last year to a third term has
been condemned internationally as illegitimate, also has cracked
down on his political opponents.
In the dispute over TPS, the administration has moved aggressively
to withdraw various protections that have allowed immigrants to
remain in the country, including ending the temporary protected
status for a total of 600,000 Venezuelans and 500,000 Haitians. That
status is granted in 18-month increments. Venezuela was first
designated for TPS in 2021; Haiti, in 2010.
Last week, DHS announced that TPS for Afghanistan, first provided in
2022, would end in mid-July.
The protections for Venezuelans had been set to expire April 7, but
Chen found that the expiration threatened to severely disrupt the
lives of hundreds of thousands of people and could cost billions in
lost economic activity.
Chen, who was appointed to the bench by Democratic President Barack
Obama, found the government hadn’t shown any harm caused by keeping
the program alive.
But Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote on behalf of the
administration that Chen’s order impermissibly interferes with the
administration’s power over immigration and foreign affairs.
In addition, Sauer told the justices, people affected by ending the
protected status might have other legal options to try to remain in
the country because the “decision to terminate TPS is not equivalent
to a final removal order.”
Congress created TPS in 1990 to prevent deportations to countries
suffering from natural disasters or civil strife.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said she would have rejected the
administration's emergency appeal.
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Associated Press writers Regina Garcia Cano in Caracas, Venezuela,
Gisela Salomon in Miami and Lindsay Whitehurst contributed to this
report.
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