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In Dissent, Jackson Warns of 'Devasting' Impacts as Supreme Court OKs Trump Ending Protections for 500K Migrants
One immigration lawyer wrote that the order "simply ignores the human costs and blesses the Trump admin's stripping of status of hundreds of thousands of people who entered the country legally."
May 30, 2025
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday cleared the way for the Trump administration to end, for now, legal protections for more than 500,000 Haitian, Cuban, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan migrants with a ruling that liberal Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson blasted in a dissent as deeply harmful.
The decision puts on hold a ruling from U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, who in April issued a stay on the Trump administration's move to end a humanitarian program extended to this group under former U.S. President Joe Biden. The ruling means the immigrants are at risk of being deported under President Donald Trump's mass deportation effort, even as the core legal issues in the case continue to play out in lower courts.
The unsigned order from the Supreme Court focuses on the so-called CHNV parole program, which allows certain individuals from those four nations to apply for entry into the U.S. for a temporary stay, so long as they have a U.S.-based sponsor, go through security vetting, and meet other conditions. In some cases, beneficiaries of the program work in the U.S.
On his first day in office, Trump issued an executive instructing the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security to "[t]erminate all categorical parole programs," including CHNV.
"The court has plainly botched this assessment today. It requires next to nothing from the government with respect to irreparable harm" wrote Jackson in her dissent, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor. "And it undervalues the devastating consequences of allowing the government to precipitously upend the lives of and livelihoods of nearly half a million noncitizens while their legal claims are pending."
Friday's ruling is the second time this month that the Supreme Court has permitted the Trump administration to halt a program aimed at protecting immigrants who leave their home countries for humanitarian reasons. Earlier in May, the court issued an unsigned order allowing Trump to cancel Temporary Protected Status protections specifically extended to 350,000 Venezuelans immigrants while the legal case winds its way through lower courts.
The court's decision on Friday is a temporary order and litigation is still playing out, but it signals that a majority of the justices think the Trump administration is likely to prevail in the case, according to The New York Times.
"Respondents now face two unbearable options," according to Jackson's dissent. Jackson wrote that immigrants in the program could either chose to leave the U.S. and potentially confront dangers in their home countries, and other adverse outcomes, or "risk imminent removal at the hands of government agents, along with its serious attendant consequences."
"The court allows the government to do what it wants to do regardless, rendering constraints of law irrelevant and unleashing devastation in the process," she concludes in the dissent.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, wrote: "an incredibly devastating decision which simply ignores the human costs and blesses the Trump admin's stripping of status of hundreds of thousands of people who entered the country legally."
Josh Gerstein, a legal reporter at Politico, wrote that the ruling "may spell trouble for Ukrainians/Afghans with similar status."
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Trump Orders Nearly 1 Million Migrants Who Entered US Legally to Leave Now
"It was never about 'legal' immigration, but always about upholding white supremacy," said one human rights lawyer.
Apr 08, 2025
In yet another Trump administration attack on migrants, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Monday announced that nearly 1 million migrants who entered the country legally using a Customs and Border Protection mobile application must leave "immediately" or face consequences including potential criminal prosecution.
DHS notified migrants who were granted temporary parole protection after entering the country using the CBP One app—which was launched by the Biden administration in 2020 and upgraded in 2023—that "it is time for you to leave the United States."
The department "mis now exercising its discretion to terminate your parole," the agency said in an email to affected—and more than 200,000 unaffected—migrants. "Unless it expires sooner, your parole will terminate seven days from the date of this notice."
"If you do not deport from the United States immediately you will be subject to potential law enforcement actions that will result in your removal," the notice continues. "You will be subject to potential criminal prosecution, civil fines, and penalties, and any other lawful options available to the federal government."
"DHS encourages you to leave immediately on your own," the notice stresses, providing a link to a new app—called CBP Home—containing "a self-deportation reporting feature for aliens illegally in the country."
"Do not attempt to remain in the United States. The federal government will find you," DHS ominously added.
Approximately 985,000 migrants used the problem-plagued CBP One app to schedule appointments with U.S. immigration officials when arriving at ports of entry and were generally permitted to remain in the country for two years with work authorization.
However, DHS claimed Monday that "the Biden administration abused the parole authority to allow millions of illegal aliens into the U.S. which further fueled the worst border crisis in U.S. history."
"Canceling these paroles is a promise kept to the American people to secure our borders and protect national security," the agency added.
President Donald Trumpended new CBP One entries on January 20, his first day in office, via executive order, a move that left thousands of vulnerable migrants stranded in Mexico after their immigration appointments were canceled.
Monday's announcement does not affect people who entered the U.S. under Operation Allies Welcome for Afghans or the Uniting for Ukraine program—although more than 200,000 Ukrainian beneficiaries last week received a separate jarring email mistakenly informing them that their status had been revoked.
The new policy also "should not immediately affect migrants who entered via CBP One and applied for asylum and have pending cases in immigration court," according toCBS News immigration and politics reporter Camilo Montoya-Galvez, who noted that "the government generally has to wait for those cases to be adjudicated or terminated before moving to deport."
More than 500,000 Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan migrants who entered the country via the CBP One app with U.S.-based financial sponsors are also bracing for the loss of their protected status on April 24. Additionally, the Trump administration announced the revocation of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for over 1 million Haitian and Venezuelan migrants.
However, on March 31 a federal judge in San Francisco blocked the administration's effort to expel 350,000 Venezuelan TPS recipients, finding that the deportations were "motivated by unconstitutional animus" and would "inflict irreparable harm" upon affected migrants.
Critics have accused the Trump administration and its supporters of reveling in the cruelty inherent in forcibly removing migrants.
Proponents, meanwhile, say Trump is keeping his promise to carry out the largest mass deportation campaign in U.S. history—even as statistics show that the Biden administration deported people at a faster rate last year.
Migrants and other immigrants, including those who legally sought asylum in the United States—at least one of whom was wrongfully expelled—are being sent by the Trump administration to destinations including a camp in the Panamanian jungle and an ultra-high security prison in El Salvador.
Advocacy groups argue that such deportations are unlawful and violate deportees' rights. Human Rights Watch has documented cases of "torture, ill-treatment, incommunicado detention, severe violations of due process, and inhumane conditions, such as lack of access to adequate healthcare and food" in Salvadoran prisons.
Responding to Monday's DHS announcement, U.S. human rights attorney Qasim Rashid noted on social media that "985K migrants entered [the] USA through legal means during the previous administration."
"Trump just unilaterally revoked their legal status," Rashid added. "It was never about 'legal' immigration, but always about upholding white supremacy. This man is a fascist."
Allen Orr Jr., a Washington, D.C.-based immigration lawyer, lamented Tuesday that "migrants who followed the rules and entered legally through CBP One are now being punished."
"Not because they broke the law, but because of who granted them the benefit," he added. "This isn't about security; it's about revenge."
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ICJ Rejects Nicaragua's Request to Block German Arms Sales to Israel
However, the World Court did not grant Germany's request to dismiss the case‚ in which Nicaragua accuses Berlin of enabling Israeli genocide in Gaza.
Apr 30, 2024
The top United Nations court on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected Nicaragua's request for an emergency order directing Germany to halt arms sales to Israel as it wages what the tribunal previously called a "plausibly" genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza.
International Court of Justice (ICJ) judges voted 15-1 against the Nicaraguan motion, finding an absence of legal conditions for issuing an order blocking Germany from selling arms to Israel.
"Based on the factual information and legal arguments presented by the parties, the court concludes that, at present, the circumstances are not such as to require the exercise of its power... to indicate provisional measures," ICJ President Nawaf Salam wrote in the ruling.
However, the court did not grant Germany's request for an outright dismissal and will hear arguments on the merits of the Nicaraguan case, a process expected to take months to complete.
Carlos José Argüello Gómez, the head of Nicaragua's legal team and its ambassador to the Netherlands, said after the ruling that the court's decision "doesn't mean that Germany hasn't violated... international law."
"Germany has—from our point of view—violated international law" by providing weapons for Israel, Argüello contended.
Nicaragua’s representative Carlos Jose Arguello Gomez says ICJ ruling doesn't mean that Germany has not violated international law by providing military aid to Israel.
🟠 LIVE updates: https://t.co/FqbkLyF2ZA pic.twitter.com/3cnPizIXps
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) April 30, 2024
Nicaragua asserts that Germany—which provided nearly 30% of Israel's exported arms last year—is complicit in Israeli war crimes and is enabling genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Palestinian and international officials say that more than 123,000 Palestinians have been killed, maimed, or left missing by Israel's relentless 207-day onslaught and siege, which has also displaced around 90% of Gaza's 2.3 million people and driven at least hundreds of thousands of people to the brink of starvation. The majority of those killed have been women and children.
"Germany is failing to honor its own obligation to prevent genocide or to ensure respect of international humanitarian law," Argüello argued during case hearings earlier this month.
According to the Lawyers' Collective—a Berlin-based group that is suing to stop German arms sales to Israel—Germany's government issued €326.5 million ($348.7 million) worth of weapons export licenses for Israel last year, the majority of which were approved after October 7, 2023. That's a tenfold increase from 2022. The group says these transfers violate Germany's obligations under the War Weapons Control Act, which requires arms exports to comply with international humanitarian law.
Germany counters that its weapons sales to Israel have decreased since the October 7 attack and emphasizes what it says are the defensive nature of recent arms transfers. Berlin also says it has robust internal mechanisms and processes to consider the human rights implications of German arms sales.
Top German diplomat Tania von Uslar-Gleichen, who is leading Germany's legal team at the ICJ, said during hearings that Nicaragua's allegations "have no basis in fact or law."
Reacting to the ICJ ruling, the German Foreign Office said that "Germany is not a party to the conflict in the Middle East. On the contrary, we are working day and night for a two-state solution."
"We are the largest donor of humanitarian aid to the Palestinians," the ministry added. "We are working to ensure that aid reaches the people in Gaza."
The German government has been intensely criticized for its stauch support for Israel and for violently cracking down on pro-Palestinian protests since October. Numerous observers contend that Germany's actions are driven by historical guilt over the Holocaust, with some critics claiming the German government is weaponizing that guilt in order to demonize Palestinians and their defenders.
Israel—which is not a party to the case—vehemently denies genocide charges, arguing it is defending itself in the wake of the Hamas-led attacks that left more than 1,100 people dead and around 240 others taken hostage. Israeli forces are believed to have killed numerous Israelis on October 7 and an unknown number of hostages since then during the bombardment and invasion of Gaza.
In addition to Nicaragua's motion, the ICJ is considering a case brought by South Africa and supported by over 30 nations asserting that Israel's Gaza assault is genocidal because it is "intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial, and ethnical group."
On January 26, the tribunal issued a provisional ruling that found Israel is "plausibly" committing genocide in Gaza and ordered the country to prevent genocidal acts. Critics accuse Israel of ignoring the order by continuing to block humanitarian aid from reaching Gazans as children and other vulnerable people starve to death.
Citing "the worsening conditions of life faced by Palestinians in Gaza, in particular the spread of famine and starvation," the ICJ last month issued another provisional order directing Israel to allow desperately needed aid into the embattled enclave and reiterating its earlier order to prevent genocidal acts.
Also last month, the U.N. Human Rights Council
published a draft report that found "reasonable grounds to believe" that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
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