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New York Post
3 days ago
- Politics
- New York Post
Judge rules that Trump administration wrongly ended humanitarian parole for hundreds of thousands
A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the Trump administration wrongly ended humanitarian parole for hundreds of thousands of people allowed to live in the United States temporarily. The decision is another legal setback for President Donald Trump's plans for mass deportation, but it may prove temporary and its immediate impact was unclear. 3 President Donald Trump speaks during a swearing in ceremony for U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C. Jeanine Pirro in the Oval Office of the White House on May 28, 2025 in Washington, DC. Getty Images Advertisement U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston sided with people who were already admitted to the United States but were unable to renew their short-term permits. They cover parole policies that benefited Afghans, Ukrainians, Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans and children from Central American countries trying to join their parents in the U.S., among others. Talwani, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, said two orders by Department of Homeland Security officials to suspend renewals pending further review were unlikely to survive a legal challenge. One of the orders 'gives no reasoned explanation' for the actions, she wrote. 'The 'pause' has now been in place for three months; the pause is, in effect, an indefinite suspension,' she wrote. 3 Laura Flores-Perilla, a lawyer with the immigrant rights group Justice Action Center, speaks with reporters about a lawsuit outside the federal courthouse in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., April 10, 2025. REUTERS Advertisement The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A group of American citizens and immigrants earlier this year sued the Trump administration for ending the long-standing legal tool presidents have used to allow people from countries where there's war or political instability to enter and temporarily live in the U.S. The humanitarian parole programs allowed in 875,000 migrants who have legal U.S. residents as sponsors. 3 Nicole, a Haitian immigrant who works for a meat processing plant, shows an email terminating her parole, Sunday, April 13, 2025, in Dumas, Texas. AP Advertisement Trump has been ending legal pathways for immigrants to come to the U.S. and implementing campaign promises to deport millions of people who are in the U.S. illegally. The plaintiffs include eight immigrants who entered the U.S. legally before the Trump administration ended what it called the 'broad abuse' of humanitarian parole. They can legally stay in the U.S. until their parole expires, but the administration stopped processing their applications for asylum, visas and other requests that might allow them to remain longer. None are identified by their real names because they fear deportation. Among them are Maksym and Maria Doe, a Ukrainian couple; Alejandro Doe, who fled Nicaragua following the abduction and torture of his father; and Omar Doe, who worked for more than 18 years with the U.S. military in his home country of Afghanistan.
Epoch Times
06-05-2025
- Politics
- Epoch Times
Appeals Court Rejects DHS's Bid to Terminate Temporary Legal Status of Immigrants
A federal appeals court on May 5 rejected the Department of Homeland Security's bid to stay a lower court ruling that blocked the termination of temporary legal status for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, Haitians, and Cubans residing in the United States. In a The panel also stated that Noem has not demonstrated that the balance of harms and the public interest 'weigh so heavily' to warrant a stay of the lower court order. The decision follows U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani's The Trump administration has argued that Noem had the discretion to categorically end the immigrants' status and that the judge's order was forcing the government to 'retain hundreds of thousands of aliens in the country against its will.' Justice Action Center, the nonprofit immigrant rights group representing humanitarian parole beneficiaries in the case, stated that it was 'relieved' by the appeals court's decision. Related Stories 4/10/2025 3/22/2025 'Now the Trump administration needs to uphold its end of the bargain,' Karen Tumlin, founder and director of Justice Action Center, said in a DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said the administration remains committed to 'restoring the rule of law to our immigration system' despite the legal challenges. Former President Joe Biden launched the CHNV parole program for Venezuelans in October 2022 to reduce illegal border crossings by flying eligible immigrants directly to the United States. It was expanded in January 2023 to include immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, and Nicaragua. The program allows up to 30,000 immigrants from the four countries into the United States each month, provided they meet certain conditions, including having a sponsor in the United States who will provide them with financial support. In March, the DHS 'Parolees without a lawful basis to remain in the United States following this termination of the CHNV parole programs must depart the United States before their parole termination date,' Noem said at the time. According to the DHS The notice said Noem may terminate parole if she determines that 'neither urgent humanitarian reasons nor significant public benefit warrants the continued presence of the alien in the United States.' In an April 10 ruling, Talwani The judge stated that the applicable law applies to those who enter the country illegally and is irrelevant to noncitizens who were allowed entry under a grant of parole. Jacob Burg and Reuters contributed to this report.
New York Times
28-04-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Lawsuit Challenges Policy Allowing Immigration Action in Churches and Schools
A lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's policy of allowing immigration enforcement agents to act in spaces like schools and houses of worship was filed in Oregon on Monday, seeking to settle a legal debate over whether those areas should be off-limits. The suit, brought by Justice Action Center and Innovation Law Lab, follows efforts by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement to step up deportations, which have so far fallen short of President Trump's goals. Immigration agents, aided by state and local law enforcement, carried out mass arrests over the weekend that ensnared nearly 800 people in Florida. A growing number of children, including some who were citizens as young as 2, have been removed. It was unclear where the hundreds in Florida were arrested over the four-day operation, though such efforts in communities require substantial planning. The lawsuit asks a federal judge to restore a policy set during the Biden administration that generally prohibits immigration agents from carrying out operations that disrupt civic spaces, particularly ones where adults and children congregate together. The suit also asks the court to nullify a memo from Mr. Trump's first week in office overturning that policy, arguing that it violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of assembly. The case brings together a diverse coalition of labor organizations, interfaith groups and parishes, with member organizations and constituents in all 50 states. Esther Sung, the legal director of Justice Action Center, said it was bipartisan consensus for decades to avoid conducting deportation and detention operations in places like food banks, vaccination clinics or testing sites, funerals, day cares or disaster relief shelters. 'There had been a constant policy in place for over 30 years by Republican and Democratic administrations alike protecting sensitive locations,' she said, 'and never once was that policy ever walked back.' The Justice Action Center, an immigrant rights group focused on litigation, won a separate case this month when a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from shutting down a work program for migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Haiti. The Innovation Law Lab, a nonprofit based in Portland, Ore., was involved in pushing back against Mr. Trump on his approach to asylum and policies devised to curtail other forms of legal immigration during his first term. Since Mr. Trump returned to office, at least three other lawsuits have been filed with the goal of blocking immigration agents from having free rein to conduct enforcement operations in schools, churches and community centers. Two were brought by coalitions of religious organizations, which argued, among other things, that they had lost congregants because anyone at risk of deportation stopped participating in public life. Only one has resulted in a meaningful restriction on immigration enforcement in places of worship, and it fell far short of the goals outlined in the lawsuit on Monday. Related challenges have had mixed success with the legal arguments they presented, and judges have been skeptical of a number of the claims on which they were predicated. Judge Dabney L. Friedrich of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia declined to immediately intervene to stop the new policy this month, writing that there was not yet evidence that enforcement tactics singling out sensitive spaces were 'sufficiently likely or imminent' or that they had a chilling effect on public life. Judge Friedrich reasoned that it was unclear that ICE agents or others had staked out sensitive locations or targeted them in a way that caused disproportionate harm. She added that apparent declines in participation at houses of worship were difficult to attribute to Mr. Trump's immigration policy. Ms. Sung said that the effect of Mr. Trump's aggressive immigration agenda on civic life had somewhat crystallized, and that the groups and people her organization had spoken to were well equipped to document examples. Beyond the narrower question of the legal status of sensitive locations, she said, the factors a judge might consider had increased significantly since earlier challenges, making the matter more urgent. Among other examples, Ms. Sung noted the administration's new emphasis on trying to punish cities and institutions that resisted Mr. Trump's immigration agenda, such as a proposed policy to defund local governments that do not allocate resources to immigration enforcement. Ms. Sung said high-profile deportation cases — including the case of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia and the administration's refusal to retrieve him from a prison in El Salvador, despite an order from the Supreme Court — have also contributed to a climate of anxiety. The complaint filed on Monday argues that a spate of hastily executed removals of people to extrajudicial confinement in places like Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, or the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador, known as CECOT, had significantly raised the stakes for associations involved in the suit. In an effort to avoid 'deportation to an indefinite detention in a maximum-security prison outside U.S. borders,' the complaint said, many people who used to associate with or receive services from the groups were staying away. 'The immigration enforcement landscape was really different in February than it is now,' Ms. Sung said. 'In February, we did not have Kilmar Abrego, we did not have Gitmo and Venezuelans being taken in shackles to either Gitmo or CECOT in El Salvador, and we didn't have college students getting picked up off the street or from a citizenship interview and being detained.'
Boston Globe
23-04-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Orders to leave the country — some for US citizens — sow confusion among immigrants
The revocation of CBP One permits has lacked the fanfare and formality of canceling Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands whose homelands were previously deemed unsafe for return and humanitarian parole for others from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela who came with financial sponsors. Those moves came with official notices in the Federal Register and press releases. Judges halted them from taking effect after advocacy groups sued. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up CBP One cancellation notices began landing in inboxes in late March without warning, some telling recipients to leave immediately and others giving them seven days. Targets included U.S. citizens. Advertisement Timothy J. Brenner, a Connecticut-born lawyer in Houston, was told April 11 to leave the U.S. 'I became concerned that the administration has a list of immigration attorneys or a database that they're trying to target to harass,' he said. CBP confirmed in a statement that it issued notices terminating temporary legal status under CBP One. It did not say how many, just that they weren't sent to all beneficiaries, which totaled 936,000 at the end of December. Advertisement CBP said notices may have been sent to unintended recipients, including attorneys, if beneficiaries provided contact information for U.S. citizens. It is addressing those situations case-by-case. Online chat groups reflect fear and confusion, which, according to critics, is the administration's intended effect. Brenner said three clients who received the notices chose to return to El Salvador after being told to leave. 'The fact that we don't know how many people got this notice is part of the problem. We're getting reports from attorneys and folks who don't know what to make of the notice,' said Hillary Li, counsel for the Justice Action Center, an advocacy group. President Donald Trump suspended CBP One for new arrivals his first day in office but those already in the U.S. believed they could stay at least until their two-year permits expired. The cancellation notices that some received ended that sense of temporary stability. 'It is time for you to leave the United States,' the letters began. 'It's really confusing,' said Robyn Barnard, senior director for refugee advocacy at Human Rights First. 'Imagine how people who entered through that process feel when they're hearing through their different community chats, rumors or screenshots that some friends have received notice and others didn't.' Attorneys say some CBP One beneficiaries may still be within a one-year window to file an asylum claim or seek other relief. Notices have been sent to others whose removal orders are on hold under other forms of temporary protection. A federal judge in Massachusetts temporarily halted deportations for more than 500,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans who came since late 2022 after applying online with a financial sponsor and flying to a U.S. airport at their own expense. Advertisement Maria, a 48-year-old Nicaraguan woman who cheered Trump's election and arrived via that path, said the notice telling her to leave landed like 'a bomb. It paralyzed me.' Maria, who asked to be named only by her middle name for fear of being detained and deported, said in a telephone interview from Florida that she would continue cleaning houses to support herself and file for asylum. Salomon reported from Miami. Associated Press writers Rebecca Santana in Washington and Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed.
Yahoo
15-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Judge rules against Trump's effort to terminate Biden-era migrant parole program
April 15 (UPI) -- A federal judge has ruled against the Trump administration's effort to strip deportation protection from hundreds of thousands of migrants legally in the United States. Judge Indira Talwani of a Massachusetts district court granted emergency relief on Monday that stays President Donald Trump's effort to terminate the Biden-era parole process for migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. In her ruling, Talwani said the Trump administration cannot revoke previously granted parole and work authorization without a case-by-case review. She said ending the migrants' status prior to the expiration of their parole would force them to either live illegally in the United States without the ability to work or return to their native countries where they face danger -- neither of which is in the public's interest. "The early termination, without any case-by-case justification, of legal status for noncitizens who have complied with [Department of Homeland Security] programs and entered the country lawfully undermines the rule of law," Talwani wrote in her 41-page ruling. Since returning to the White House on Jan. 20, Trump has conducted a crackdown on legal and illegal immigration. On his first day in office, Trump issued an immigration-related executive order that, among other things, directed the termination of the humanitarian parole program President Joe Biden created in January 2023 to curb illegal immigration while creating a pathway to enter the country for those from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. On March 25, the Department of Homeland Security announced it would end the parole program by April 24, threatening the future status of some 530,000 migrants from the four countries who are legally in the United States and protected from deportation for up to two years. Talwani's ruling comes in a class action lawsuit originally filed Feb. 28 by Justice Action Center, Human Rights First and plaintiff organization Haitian Bridge Alliance and several people who would be affected by the termination of the parole program, known as CHNV. "This ruling is a significant step toward justice for not only the hundreds of thousands of people who entered the U.S. through this important process, but for the American sponsors who welcomed them to their homes and communities," Karen Tumlin, founder and director of Justice Action Center, said in a statement. "Our clients -- and our class members -- have done everything the government asked of them, and we're gratified to see that the court will not allow the government to fail to uphold its side of the bargain."
