Supreme Court Gives Donald Trump Admin Win
President Donald Trump secured a major legal victory at the U.S. Supreme Court — and in a striking twist, he did so with the backing of several liberal justices. In an 8–1 decision, the Court overturned a lower-court injunction that had blocked the president from dismantling Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals currently residing in the United States.
Only Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, appointed by former President Joe Biden, dissented.
The sweeping decision opens the door for the Trump administration to revoke Biden-era protections for roughly 300,000 Venezuelan migrants and begin immediate removals, according to arguments presented by the administration’s lawyers.
Last month, U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer told the justices that the lower court had improperly inserted itself into matters clearly entrusted to the Executive Branch.
He argued that “the district court’s reasoning is untenable,” and stressed that TPS involves “particularly discretionary, sensitive, and foreign-policy-laden judgments of the Executive Branch concerning immigration policy.”
The administration’s move follows a February directive from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who formally rescinded Venezuela’s TPS designation effective April.
Venezuela received another TPS designation on October 3, 2023, under claims that “exceptional and temporary circumstances” made repatriation unsafe. But DHS said that after reviewing conditions and consulting national-security agencies, Venezuela no longer met the statutory criteria.
The memo concluded it was no longer in America’s interest to allow beneficiaries to continue residing in the country.
“Consequently, the 2023 TPS designation for Venezuela is being revoked,” it stated.
The same memo recapped former Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’s series of rolling extensions:
“On March 9, 2021, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas designated Venezuela for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) due to his assessment of ‘extraordinary and temporary conditions’ in Venezuela that hindered the safe return of its nationals, asserting that allowing these individuals to remain temporarily in the United States aligns with U.S. national interests,” it stated.
It continued: “On September 8, 2022, former Secretary Mayorkas prolonged the Venezuela 2021 TPS designation for 18 months.”
And on October 3, 2023, Mayorkas extended the 2021 designation again — while simultaneously creating a second designation for Venezuela lasting until April 2, 2025. This effectively established two concurrent TPS tracks for the same country.
On January 17, 2025, Mayorkas announced yet another extension — adding 18 more months to the 2023 designation — asserting that conditions still met TPS requirements under INA 244(b)(3)(A), (C), and 8 U.S.C. 1254a(b)(3)(A), (C).
But the January announcement did not clarify the status of the 2021 designation. Instead, it broadly encouraged all Venezuelan TPS holders to reapply by October 2, 2026 “regardless of whether they were under the 2021 or 2023 designations,” according to the memo.
On January 28, 2025, Secretary Noem reversed Mayorkas’s final decision and restored the previous legal baseline.
A federal judge quickly intervened. U.S. District Judge Edward Chen of the Northern District of California temporarily halted Noem’s move in March, accusing DHS of making arguments “unfounded and replete with racism.”
But the Supreme Court’s ruling has now effectively cleared the way for the Trump administration’s policy to proceed.
Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security says immigration enforcement under President Trump has already reached historic levels. As of late October 2025, DHS reports more than 527,000 removals since Trump returned to office on January 20, 2025, along with 1.6 million voluntary departures, totaling roughly 2 million exits in less than a year.
Agency officials say the numbers are expected to continue rising as new resources and funding come online.