Washington — The Trump administration on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to wade into its effort to terminate the Temporary Protected Status program protecting roughly 350,000 Venezuelan migrants in the U.S. from deportation.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem revoked the designation in February, which would have cleared the way for the migrants to lose their government-issued work permits and deportations protections on April 7. But a federal judge in California agreed to delay the move in late March and said her decision to terminate the TPS program for the Venezuelan migrants appeared to be “predicated on negative stereotypes.”
A federal appeals court declined to provide emergency relief to the Trump administration and pause the district court’s order, leading the Trump administration to seek the Supreme Court’s intervention.
“So long as the order is in effect, the secretary must permit hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan nationals to remain in the country, notwithstanding her reasoned determination that doing so is ‘contrary to the national interest,'” Solicitor General John Sauer wrote in the administration’s emergency appeal with the high court.
Congress in 1990 established the program that allows the federal government to provide temporary immigration protections for migrants from countries experiencing wars, natural disasters or other “extraordinary and temporary” conditions that make it dangerous to send deportees there. The program allows beneficiaries to apply for renewable work permits and deportation deferrals.
During the Biden administration, then-Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas designated Venezuela for the Temporary Protected Status program, citing “extraordinary and temporary” conditions that prevented Venezuelans in the U.S. from returning to their home country. Mayorkas extended the designation in 2023 and then again just before the end of the Biden administration.
But after Mr. Trump took office for his second term, Noem vacated that extension, finding that it was “contrary to the national interest” to continue the program. The termination was set to take effect April 7.
TPS beneficiaries and the National TPS Alliance filed a lawsuit in February challenging Noem’s decision, and U.S. District Judge Edward Chen ruled in their favor and postponed Noem’s termination from taking effect nationwide. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit then declined to pause that order.
In a filing with the Supreme Court, Sauer said the district court’s injunction “wrested control of the nation’s immigration policy away from the Executive Branch and imposed the court’s own perception.”
“The district court’s decision undermines the Executive Branch’s inherent powers as to immigration and foreign affairs,” he wrote, calling the lower court’s order “ill-considered.”
The request for emergency relief from the Trump administration is one of nearly a dozen involving Mr. Trump’s second-term agenda that has landed before the Supreme Court. The decision to end the TPS program for Venezuelans is also among a bevy of actions taken by the Trump administration as part of its sweeping crackdown on illegal immigration and efforts to restrict the relief that allows some migrants to come to the U.S. and stay.
A response from the National TPS Alliance is due May 8.
