Supreme Court Gives Trump Admin Another Big Win
The Supreme Court on Friday cleared the way for President Donald J. Trump’s administration to proceed with ending Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for more than 300,000 Venezuelan nationals, overturning lower-court obstacles and delivering a significant win for the administration’s effort to restore the rule of law to the immigration system.
In a short emergency order, the Court granted the administration’s request to stay enforcement of a federal judge’s ruling that had blocked the termination of TPS for Venezuelans. As a result, the Department of Homeland Security may now move forward with revoking protections that allowed Venezuelan migrants to remain in the United States and work legally despite lacking permanent legal status.
The decision reinforces President Trump’s long-standing position that TPS has been improperly expanded and abused by previous administrations, morphing from a narrowly tailored humanitarian tool into a quasi-amnesty program never authorized by Congress. Enacted in 1990, TPS was designed as a temporary measure for foreign nationals fleeing extraordinary conditions such as natural disasters or armed conflict—not a permanent workaround to immigration law.
Although the ruling applies specifically to Venezuelans, left-wing immigration groups immediately warned it could have implications for other TPS recipients, including Haitians, Hondurans, and Salvadorans. Advocacy organizations claim the policy shift could disrupt employment and housing arrangements, though critics argue those consequences stem from years of unlawful extensions that created false expectations of permanence.
“This ruling jeopardizes not just Venezuelan families, but the integrity of humanitarian protections altogether,” said Jorge Lowery of the National TPS Alliance. “We’re bracing for mass disruption in immigrant communities across the country.”
TPS for Venezuelans and Haitians was aggressively expanded under the Biden administration, which cited humanitarian concerns while critics accused it of sidestepping Congress and incentivizing illegal immigration. President Trump has made reversing those expansions a priority, arguing that executive overreach weakened border enforcement and undermined national sovereignty.
U.S. District Judge Edward Chen had previously accused DHS of acting “with unprecedented haste and in an unprecedented manner … for the preordained purpose of expediting termination of Venezuela’s TPS.” A federal appellate panel echoed that criticism, claiming DHS “made its decisions first and searched for a valid basis for those decisions second.”
Friday’s Supreme Court order halts those rulings, restoring DHS’s authority to enforce the TPS termination while litigation continues.
The decision prompted a dissent from the Court’s liberal wing. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, accused the majority of overstepping through the emergency docket.
“I view today’s decision as yet another grave misuse of our emergency docket,” Jackson wrote. “This Court should have stayed its hand. Having opted instead to join the fray, the Court plainly misjudges the irreparable harm and balance-of-the-equities factors by privileging the bald assertion of unconstrained executive power over countless families’ pleas for the stability our Government has promised them.”
“Because, respectfully, I cannot abide our repeated, gratuitous, and harmful interference with cases pending in the lower courts while lives hang in the balance, I dissent,” she added.
Notably, the order applies only to Venezuelans and does not extend to Haitians, who were also involved in the broader litigation. With the ruling in effect, DHS may now initiate removal proceedings for Venezuelan nationals whose TPS protections have expired.
Portland-based immigration attorney Teresa Amaya said the ruling has created uncertainty among her clients. “People don’t know whether to pack up their lives, whether their work permits are still valid, or whether ICE could come knocking next week,” she said.
President Trump has repeatedly emphasized that border security and immigration enforcement are central to preserving American sovereignty and the integrity of federal law. His administration has also ordered reviews of other humanitarian programs that critics say have been exploited to bypass Congress and normalize illegal residence.
Immigration activists, however, signaled they will continue legal challenges in the lower courts.
“We are not giving up,” Lowery said. “These families deserve stability, not whiplash from every change in administration.”