Venezuelans in trouble as US SC allows Trump to end protections

Washington: The US Supreme Court let Donald Trump’s administration on Monday strip temporary protected status from Venezuelans living in the United States that had been granted under his predecessor Joe Biden, as the Republican president moves to ramp up deportations as part of his hardline approach to immigration.

The court granted the Justice Department’s request to lift San Francisco-based U.S. District Judge Edward Chen’s order that had halted Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s decision to terminate the deportation protection conferred to Venezuelans under the temporary protected status, or TPS, program.

The court’s brief order was unsigned, as is typical when the justices act on an emergency request. The court, however, left open the door to any challenges by migrants if the administration seeks to invalidate work permits or other TPS-related documents that were issued to expire in October 2026, which is the end of the TPS period extended by Biden. The Department of Homeland Security has said about 348,202 Venezuelans were registered under Biden’s 2023 TPS designation.

Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the sole member of the court to publicly dissent from the decision.

The action came in a legal challenge by plaintiffs including some of the TPS recipients and the National TPS Alliance advocacy group, who said Venezuela remains an unsafe country. Trump, who returned to the presidency in January, has pledged to deport record numbers of migrants in the United States illegally and has taken actions to strip certain migrants of temporary legal protections, expanding the pool

of possible deportees.