The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday sided with the Trump administration in allowing the termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) from deportation for nearly 350,000 Venezuelans living in the United States.
The court granted a request from the Justice Department to lift a previous ruling by U.S. District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco, which had temporarily blocked the decision by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to end TPS for Venezuelans.
TPS is a humanitarian program that grants work permits and protection from deportation to individuals from countries deemed unsafe due to war, natural disaster, or crisis.
The Supreme Court’s order was unsigned, as is common in emergency cases. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the only justice to publicly dissent.
The legal challenge to the policy change was brought by Venezuelan TPS recipients and the National TPS Alliance. They argued that returning to Venezuela would be unsafe due to the country’s ongoing political and economic instability.
TPS for Venezuelans was initially granted under President Joe Biden in 2021 and extended in 2023. Just days before Biden left office in January, his administration announced the program would be extended until 2026.
After taking office, Trump’s administration reversed