By pepko The Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Trump administration to terminate Temporary Protected Status for approximately 350,000 Venezuelans who were protected from deportation and allowed to work in the United States.
The court approved the administration’s emergency request to lift a lower court’s order that barred it from ending the protections while other legal proceedings continue.
In their application to the high court, lawyers representing the government had said the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California undermined “the Executive Branch’s inherent powers as to immigration and foreign affairs,” when it halted the administration from ending protections and work permits in April 2025 as opposed to the original date in October 2026.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson called the court’s decision a “win for the American people and the safety of our communities.”
“The Biden Administration exploited parole programs to let poorly vetted migrants into this country — from MS-13 gang members to known terrorists and murderers. The Trump Administration is reinstituting integrity into our immigration system to keep our homeland and its people safe,” they added.
Ahilan Arulanantham, who is representing TPS holders in the case, said he believes this to be “the largest single action stripping any group of non-citizens of immigration status in modern U.S. history.”
“This is the largest single action stripping any group of non-citizens of immigration status in modern U.S. history. That the Supreme Court authorized this action in a two-paragraph order with no reasoning is truly shocking,” Arulanantham said. “The humanitarian and economic impact of the Court’s decision will be felt immediately, and will reverberate for generations.”
The decision leaves hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan immigrants who participated in the legal process of applying and then receiving TPS asking themselves if they are in the country legally and whether they can go into work tomorrow.
Lawyers representing them are just as stumped. The Supreme Court’s three-paragraph decision did not explain why or when the administration can start rolling them back.
That means that, for now, the question of when to start deporting Venezuelan TPS holders may be at the government’s discretion.
“I think the immediate impact of the decision is unfortunately unclear, because the court explains almost nothing in in its order. Definitely, one reading of the decision is that the 350,000 Venezuelan TPS holders from the 2023 cohort have just lost their status and employment authorization right now,” Arulanantham said during a news conference Monday afternoon.
It’s also possible that TPS holders have protection for a few more days, but the Supreme Court did not make it clear, leading Arulanantham to blast its decision as “callous.”
“That lack of clarity just underscores how callous the Supreme Court was in treating this issue. If you’re going to make decisions that affect the lives of so many people, you at least owe it to the world and to them to explain what it is that you’re doing and when decision is going to take effect,” he said.
Days before leaving office, the Biden administration announced an 18-month extension of TPS benefits for Venezuelans who obtained the status in 2023. It had created protected status for Venezuelans, in part, because conditions in Venezuela under President Nicolás Maduro made it risky to deport migrants there.
But three days after being confirmed in February, DDHS Secretary Kristi Noem vacated the decision.
In its lawsuit, the National TPS Alliance and seven Venezuelan nationals accused Noem’s decision to vacate the extension as being motivated “at least in part by racial animus” toward Venezuelans. The lawsuit claims Noem has repeatedly called Venezuelans “dirtbags” and gang members during news interviews.
Today’s ruling pauses a district court’s order which temporarily barred the administration from ending TPS Venezuela benefits ahead of the deadline that the Biden administration implemented.
The ruling might have major repercussions for hundreds of thousands of other people. At the moment, DHS’ termination of TPS for Haiti, Cameroon, and Afghanistan is being challenged in courts across the country with similar arguments as those for Venezuela.