The Supreme Court just gave the green light for the Trump team to take away legal protection from over 500,000 immigrants who were allowed to stay under a Biden-era program.
These are from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. A lower court had tried to block this move, but now it’s over.
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This decision puts all those people at risk of being deported.
Over half a million people are affected
The court sided with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who asked for the Biden program to be shut down.
That program had let over 500,000 people from those four countries live and work in the U.S. temporarily.
Now, that permission is gone.
Some might still be able to stay
Even with this ruling, not everyone’s out of options. Lawyers say many have already applied for asylum.
Some might still have legal ways to remain in the U.S.
Supreme Court gave no reason for its decision
The court didn’t explain its ruling. It just issued a brief order.
Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor were the only ones who dissented.
Jackson slammed the ruling as harmful
Jackson said the court ignored “the devastating consequences of allowing the government to precipitously upend the lives and livelihoods of nearly half a million noncitizens while their legal claims are pending.”
She strongly opposed the decision.
A judge had earlier tried to stop this
Before this, a federal judge in Massachusetts, Indira Talwani, ruled the government couldn’t cancel everyone’s status at once.
She said each case needed an individual review.
That decision is now on hold while the legal fight continues.
Immigrant lawyers say it’s a huge blow
“The Supreme Court has effectively greenlit deportation orders for an estimated half a million people, the largest such de-legalization in the modern era,” said Karen Tumlin from the Justice Action Center.
“I cannot overstate how devastating this is: The Supreme Court has allowed the Trump Administration to unleash widespread chaos, not just for our clients and class members, but for their families, their workplaces, and their communities,” she said.
The Biden program aimed to ease border pressure
In 2022, then-Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas launched the program to manage the surge at the U.S.-Mexico border.
People from the four countries were given two-year parole if they passed a background check and had a U.S. sponsor.
It was meant to bring some order to the situation.
Trump officials say this was the right call
Tricia McLaughlin from Homeland Security called the ruling a win.
She said it fixed a mistake by the Biden team, who had let in “poorly vetted aliens.”
From their side, this was about border security.
Who gets to make these decisions is a big part of the fight
The legal battle is also about authority.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer said Judge Talwani didn’t have the power to block Noem’s decision.
The same law that let Mayorkas create the program also gave Noem the right to end it. By late 2024, DHS had already said no one’s parole would be renewed after two years.
Immigrant rights groups pushed back in court
Noem’s move faced lawsuits from individuals and groups like the Haitian Bridge Alliance.
Their lawyers argued Talwani never stopped the program from ending, just said the government couldn’t cancel everyone’s status in one sweeping move.
They pushed for a more fair, case-by-case process.
