Latest news with #KetanjiBrownJackson
Al Jazeera
3 days ago
- Business
- Al Jazeera
Supreme Court allows Trump to revoke humanitarian parole for 530,000
The conservative-dominated United States Supreme Court has handed President Donald Trump another major victory, allowing his administration to revoke a temporary legal status from more than 500,000 immigrants as legal challenges continue in lower courts. Friday's decision applies to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan, Cuban, Haitian and Nicaraguan people who were granted humanitarian parole under the administration of former President Joe Biden. That parole status allowed them to enter the US due to emergencies or urgent humanitarian reasons, including instability, violence and political repression in their home countries. But the Supreme Court's ruling means that the beneficiaries of humanitarian parole could be targeted for deportation prior to a final ruling on whether the revocation of their immigration status is legal. The ruling by the top court, which is dominated six-to-three by conservatives, reverses a lower court's order temporarily halting the Trump administration from yanking humanitarian parole from Venezuelans, Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans. The Supreme Court's decision was unsigned and did not provide reasoning. However, two liberal justices on the panel publicly dissented. The outcome 'undervalues 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', Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote. She noted that some of the affected individuals had indicated in court filings that they would face grave harm if their humanitarian parole were cut short. Trump has targeted programmes like humanitarian parole as part of his efforts to limit immigration into the US. His administration has accused Biden of 'broad abuse' in his invocation of humanitarian parole: Trump has said Biden was lax on immigration and oversaw an 'invasion' of the US from abroad. Since taking office in January, Trump's administration has also indefinitely suspended applications for asylum and other forms of immigration relief. The plaintiffs in Friday's humanitarian parole case warned the Supreme Court they could face life-threatening conditions if they were not allowed to seek other avenues for immigration and were forced to leave the country. If they were deported 'to the same despotic and unstable countries from which they fled', lawyers for the plaintiffs argued that 'many will face serious risks of danger, persecution and even death'. Earlier in May, the Supreme Court also allowed Trump to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) — another temporary immigration pathway — for about 350,000 Venezuelans living in the US. TPS allows non-citizens to remain in the US while circumstances in their home countries remain unsafe or unstable. As with Friday's case, the Supreme Court's ruling on TPS allowed the Trump administration to move forward with removals while a legal challenge to Trump's policy plays out in lower courts. Biden had encouraged the use of programmes like TPS and humanitarian parole as alternatives to undocumented immigration into the US. Humanitarian parole, for instance, allowed recipients to legally live and work in the US for two years. Trump's efforts to end the programme would cut that timeframe short. The countries in question — Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba and Haiti — have all experienced significant economic and political crises in recent years. In Venezuela, for instance, critics have accused President Nicolas Maduro of detaining and disappearing political dissidents and activists, and an economic collapse caused hyperinflation that put basic necessities beyond the means of many Venezuelans. Millions have fled the country in recent years. One of the other countries, Haiti, has been ravaged by a spike in gang violence since the assassination of President Jovenal Moise in 2021. Federal elections have not been held since, and gangs have used violence to fill the power vacuum. As much as 90 percent of the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, has fallen under gang control, according to the United Nations, and thousands have been killed.
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
Supreme court allows White House to revoke temporary protected status of many migrants
The US supreme court on Friday announced it would allow the Trump administration to revoke the temporary legal status of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan, Cuban, Haitian and Nicaraguan migrants living in the United States, bolstering the Republican president's drive to step up deportations. The court put on hold Boston-based US district judge Indira Talwani's order halting the administration's move to end the immigration humanitarian 'parole' protections granted to 532,000 people by Trump's predecessor, Joe Biden, potentially exposing many of them to rapid removal from the country, while the detailed case plays out in lower courts. As with many of the court's emergency orders – after rapid appeals brought the case to their bench – the decision issued on Friday was unsigned and gave no reasoning. However two of the court's three liberal-leaning justices, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor, publicly dissented. The court 'botched' its assessment of whether the administration was entitled to freeze Talwani's decision pending the litigation, Jackson wrote in an accompanying opinion. The outcome, Jackson wrote, 'undervalues 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'. Jackson also said that 'it is apparent that the government seeks a stay to enable it to inflict maximum pre-decision damage.' She added that those living under parole protections in this case now face 'two unbearable options'. One option is to 'elect to leave the United States and thereby, confront 'dangers in their native countries,' experience destructive 'family separation' and possibly 'forfeit any opportunity to obtain a remedy based on their … claims', Jackson wrote. The other option is that they could remain in the US after parole termination and 'risk imminent removal at the hands of government agents, along with its serious attendant consequences'. To Jackson, 'either choice creates significant problems for respondents that far exceed any harm to the government … At a minimum, granting the stay would facilitate needless human suffering before the courts have reached a final judgement regarding the legal arguments at issue, while denying the government's application would not have anything close to the kind of practical impact.' Immigration parole is a form of temporary permission under American law to be in the country for 'urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit', allowing recipients to live and work in the US. Biden, a Democrat, used parole as part of his administration's approach to handling migrants entering at the US-Mexico border. Such a status does not offer immigrants a long-term path towards citizenship but it can typically be renewed multiple times. A report from the American Immigration Council found that halting the program would, apart from the humanitarian effect, be a blow to the US economy, as households in the US where the breadwinners have temporary protected status (TPS) collectively earned more than $10bn in total income in 2021 while paying nearly $1.3bn in federal taxes. Trump called for ending humanitarian parole programs in an executive order signed on 20 January, his first day back in office. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) subsequently moved to terminate them in March, cutting short the two-year parole grants. The administration said revoking the parole status would make it easier to place migrants in a fast-track deportation process called 'expedited removal'. The case is one of many that the Trump administration has brought in an emergency fashion to the nation's highest judicial body seeking to undo decisions by judges impeding the president's sweeping policies, including several targeting immigrants. The supreme court on 19 May also let Trump end TPS that had been granted under Biden to about 350,000 additional Venezuelans living in the United States, while that legal dispute plays out. Jackson was the only justice to publicly dissent then, while House Democrats condemned the supreme court's decision. In a bid to reduce unauthorized border crossings, Biden starting in 2022 offering limited extra pathways to come to the US legally, allowing Venezuelans who entered the US by air to request a two-year parole if they passed security checks and had a US financial sponsor. Biden expanded that eligibility process to Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans in 2023 as his administration grappled with high levels of illegal immigration from those countries. The plaintiffs in this case, a group of migrants granted parole and Americans who serve as their sponsors, sued administration officials claiming they violated federal law governing the actions of government agencies. Talwani in April found that the law governing such parole did not allow for the program's blanket termination, instead requiring a case-by-case review. The Boston-based first US circuit court of appeals declined to put the judge's decision on hold and the government appealed. The justice department told the supreme court that Talwani's order had upended 'critical immigration policies that are carefully calibrated to deter illegal entry', effectively 'undoing democratically approved policies that featured heavily in the November election' that returned Trump to the presidency. The plaintiffs told the supreme court they would face grave harm if their parole is cut short given that the administration has indefinitely suspended processing their pending applications for asylum and other immigration relief. They said they would be separated from their families and immediately subject to expedited deportation 'to the same despotic and unstable countries from which they fled, where many will face serious risks of danger, persecution and even death'. Reuters contributed reporting
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
KBJ Blasts 'Botched' Supreme Court Ruling on Immigration Protections
Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson thinks the Supreme Court 'botched' a decision to allow the Trump administration to revoke the Temporary Protected Status protections of about 500,000 Haitian, Cuban, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan immigrants. Jackson and fellow liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor were the only two dissenters. 'The Court has plainly botched this assessment today. It requires next to nothing from the Government with respect to irreparable harm,' Jackson wrote in the dissent. '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.' TPS is a longstanding program that allowed those 500,000 immigrants to stay in the U.S. after they fled violence and risk in their home countries. After the Supreme Court's ruling, all of them are at high risk of sudden deportation. 'It is apparent that the government seeks a stay to enable it to inflict maximum predecision damage,' Jackson wrote.
Bloomberg
3 days ago
- General
- Bloomberg
Supreme Court Clears Trump to Strip 500,000 of Legal Status
The Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to immediately end temporary legal status for migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, affecting up to half a million people. The court's order clears the way for the Department of Homeland Security to end so-called parole programs, which gave migrants temporary legal status, and marks the second time in less than two weeks the justices have opened hundreds of thousands of migrants to possible deportation. The decision was met with dissent from Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor, who argued that the court "undervalues 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." Bloomberg's Greg Stohr reports. (Source: Bloomberg)
Mint
3 days ago
- Politics
- Mint
500,000 migrants lose right to temporarily live, work in US after Supreme Court nod
As many as 500,000 migrants have lost their right to temporarily live and work in the United States after the Supreme Court let the Donald Trump administration immediately strip their legal right. Migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela have been affected by this ruling. Despite two dissenting opinions, the high court allowed the Department of Homeland Security to end the parole programs that had granted temporary legal status to migrants from four countries. Two of the court's three liberal justices, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor, publicly dissented. By giving nod to the Trump administration, the Supreme Court put on hold Boston-based US District Judge Indira Talwani's order halting the administration's move to end the immigration 'parole' granted to 532,000 of these migrants by Joe Biden.
