A Federal Appeal court has rejected a push by the Trump administration to revoke temporary legal protections granted to hundreds of thousands of migrants from four Latin American countries, marking a major legal victory for immigration advocates.
The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Boston, declined to suspend a lower court ruling that blocked the Department of Homeland Security, DHS, from prematurely terminating a two-year humanitarian “parole” granted to Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans during President Joe Biden’s administration.
The ruling came in response to the Trump administration’s broader immigration crackdown, which seeks to reverse Biden-era programs that allowed migrants fleeing crises to live and work legally in the United States.
DHS had argued that Secretary Kristi Noem held the authority to end the parole en masse, claiming the court’s intervention would force the U.S. to retain hundreds of thousands of noncitizens “against its will.”
However, the appeals panel—composed entirely of judges appointed by Democratic presidents—disagreed. It ruled that Noem had not convincingly demonstrated that her sweeping termination of parole was likely to hold up on appeal.
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Karen Tumlin, a lead attorney from the Justice Action Center, which brought the case, celebrated the ruling. “The court has reaffirmed that these reckless and unlawful attempts to strip legal protections from vulnerable migrants cannot stand,” she said.
Meanwhile, the DHS spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, reiterated the administration’s hardline position: “No lawsuit will stop us from restoring the rule of law to our immigration system.”
The legal challenge stemmed from a DHS decision—announced March 25—to rescind parole for about 400,000 individuals. But U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, appointed by former President Barack Obama, issued an injunction on April 25, stating that the categorical revocation violated federal law requiring case-by-case review.
The Trump administration could now take the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court for further adjudication.
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