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President Donald Trump scored a massive victory at the Supreme Court, even getting traditionally liberal justices in his favor.
The court lifted a lower court injunction that was preventing the president from stripping the protected legal status of hundreds of thousands of migrants currently residing in the United States.
The decision was 8 – 1 in favor of what the president wanted, with the only dissent coming from Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who former President Joe Biden appointed.
“The decision clears the way for the Trump administration to move forward with its plans to terminate Biden-era Temporary Protected Status (TPS) protections for roughly 300,000 Venezuelan migrants living in the U.S. and allows the administration to move forward with plans to immediately remove these migrants, which lawyers for the administration argued they should be able to do,” the report said.
When U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer spoke before the Supreme Court this month, he said the lower court had overstepped its bounds.
“The district court’s reasoning is untenable,” he said, saying that the program “implicates particularly discretionary, sensitive, and foreign-policy-laden judgments of the Executive Branch regarding immigration policy.”
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem revoked the Temporary Protected Status in a February memo with an effective date in April.
“On October 3, 2023, Venezuela was newly designated for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) due to extraordinary and temporary conditions preventing the safe return of Venezuelan nationals. After reviewing current country conditions and consulting with appropriate U.S. Government agencies, the Secretary of Homeland Security has determined that Venezuela no longer meets the conditions for the 2023 designation. Specifically, it has been determined that it is contrary to the national interest to permit the covered Venezuelan nationals to remain temporarily in the United States. Therefore, the 2023 TPS designation of Venezuela is being terminated,” the memo said.
“On March 9, 2021, then Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas designated Venezuela for TPS based on his determination that there existed “extraordinary and temporary conditions” in Venezuela that prevented nationals of Venezuela from returning in safety and that permitting such aliens to remain temporarily in the United States is not contrary to the U.S. national interest,” it said.
“On September 8, 2022, then Secretary Mayorkas extended the Venezuela 2021 TPS designation for 18 months,” the memo said. “On October 3, 2023, Secretary Mayorkas extended the