In a pivotal win for President Donald Trump’s administration, the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday authorized the lifting of legal protections for over half a million migrants from Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti, and Nicaragua, aligning with Trump’s firm stance on restoring the rule of law at America’s borders.

The high court granted an emergency request from the administration to stay a lower court ruling that had previously blocked Trump’s order to terminate immigration “parole” status handed out under former President Joe Biden. That earlier ruling, from U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston, had shielded 532,000 individuals from deportation. With Friday’s decision, those protections have now been removed while the case works its way through the appeals process.

As is standard in such matters, the Supreme Court’s decision was unsigned and issued without a written opinion. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, both appointees of Democratic presidents, dissented.

At issue is the immigration parole program, a controversial tool that allows federal officials to grant temporary status for so-called “urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.” The Biden administration exploited this mechanism as part of its broader push to flood the country with migrants, despite record-breaking illegal crossings and a strained immigration system.

President Trump wasted no time acting after returning to the White House in January. On his first day back, he signed an executive order dismantling Biden’s parole giveaways, and by March, the Department of Homeland Security moved to limit parole grants to fewer than two years—ensuring these cases would move more efficiently into deportation proceedings.

The Justice Department, in its appeal to the Supreme Court, warned that Judge Talwani’s ruling jeopardized critical national security and immigration enforcement tools. The department noted that the lower court decision risked undermining “democratically approved policies that featured heavily in the November election,” which saw Trump re-elected with a clear mandate to restore border enforcement.

The legal battle underscores a broader pattern: activist judges and left-wing interest groups seeking to thwart Trump’s lawful immigration agenda. The plaintiffs in this case—a coalition of paroled migrants and their sponsors—argue that the federal government must conduct “individualized” reviews, not policy-based terminations.

Judge Talwani sided with them in April, claiming the administration couldn’t revoke parole en masse. The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld her injunction. But now, the nation’s highest court has stepped in to restore the president’s rightful authority over immigration policy.

This is not the only immigration ruling breaking in Trump’s favor. On May 19, the Supreme Court cleared the way for Trump to revoke Temporary Protected Status (TPS)—another Biden-era shield from deportation—impacting some 350,000 Venezuelan nationals.

Biden had aggressively expanded parole and TPS policies during his presidency. In 2022, his administration began offering two-year stays to Venezuelans who met minimal vetting criteria and had a sponsor. In 2023, the plan widened to include migrants from Cuba, Haiti, and Nicaragua, amid a sharp rise in unlawful border crossings from those countries.

The current administration argues that these programs have contributed to the overburdening of American communities, weakened national sovereignty, and incentivized more illegal migration.

Meanwhile, in a related victory for conservatives and free enterprise, the Supreme Court on Thursday slashed red tape surrounding environmental reviews. In a ruling that could streamline permits for highways, energy pipelines, and other infrastructure, the court reined in the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)—a decades-old law that has been wielded by environmental groups to stall progress and growth.

Trump has long criticized the NEPA process as a tool of bureaucratic obstruction, and this decision signals a further rollback of activist-driven policy roadblocks. Environmental activists lamented the move, but for those who prioritize jobs, development, and American energy independence, it’s a long-overdue course correction.

With the court’s conservative majority expected to issue more landmark rulings as its term winds down in June, the Trump administration continues to score crucial victories in its effort to restore constitutional governance and national security after years of leftist overreach.