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Today, the U.S. Supreme Court handed President Trump a temporary win. It permitted his administration to end a humanitarian program prematurely. That program had granted two-year legal status to more than half a million people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela - known as the CHNV group. NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg reports.
NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE: Trump announced that he was ending the program on his first day in office this year, saying he was prioritizing the needs of American citizens and securing the border. But a federal district court judge blocked that plan. The administration, rather than accept an offer for expedited appeal at the 1st Circuit Court, went directly to the Supreme Court, asking that the district court order be suspended while the litigation plays out in the lower courts.
Today, the Supreme Court granted the Trump administration its wish over a fiery dissent from liberal Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor. There were no other noted dissents, and as is typical with such emergency orders, the court gave no explanation for its ruling. Jackson, writing for herself and Sotomayor, noted that the so-called parole program is a competitive process in which each immigrant is admitted on a case-by-case basis after a full vetting. She said that the government had failed to produce evidence supporting the need for a premature mass deportation and that it would lose little by simply letting the two-year term expire. In contrast, she said, today's order would likely prove devastating to the CHNV immigrants who were permitted to enter the country legally, mainly to protect their safety, and now must either risk returning to their home countries or stay in the United States illegally, knowing that if they're deported, they're forfeiting any chance to return.
Karen Tumlin, co-counsel for the immigrants, fought back tears today as she described the effects of what she said was the largest mass deportation in the nation's history. These people, she said, played by the rules to enter the country legally, with the promise of being legal immigrants for two years.
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KAREN TUMLIN: The Trump administration unilaterally and prematurely reneged on that promise, ordering a termination of their lawful status and clawing back their work permits en masse.
TOTENBERG: This, she said, is a sad day.
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TUMLIN: It's not just sad for our clients, but for the hundreds of thousands of other people - Ukrainians fleeing Russian invasion, Afghans who assisted our U.S. military service members - whose parole status has also been threatened and who may now suffer the exact same fate.
TOTENBERG: The federal law authorizing such humanitarian parole dates back to 1952, when it was first used to provide temporary entry for some 30,000 Hungarians fleeing their country amid a Soviet crackdown. In the decades since then, every administration, including the first Trump administration, has used the parole program to meet some emergency immigration need, allowing individuals who've been screened and approved to enter the U.S. if they have a U.S. sponsor willing to provide financial and other support. Individuals granted such temporary legal status can, once here, apply for asylum or some other more permanent status, but the Trump administration maintains that these individuals cannot remain here while that status is being determined. That is yet another dispute that could ultimately end up at the Supreme Court.
Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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