BOSTON, May 6 (Alliance News): A federal appeals court has rejected a bid by former US President Donald Trump’s administration to revoke the temporary legal status of hundreds of thousands of migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, ruling in favor of maintaining protections granted under President Joe Biden.
The 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston refused to stay a lower court’s order that blocked the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from terminating a two-year “parole” status granted to these migrants under Biden-era policies.
The Trump administration had sought to revoke the parole as part of its broader efforts to intensify deportations and roll back existing immigration relief programs.
In its argument, the administration claimed that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had the authority to end the parole status en masse, and contended the court was forcing the government to retain “hundreds of thousands of aliens in the country against its will.”
However, the three-judge panel—all appointed by Democratic presidents—dismissed this assertion, stating that Secretary Noem had not demonstrated that the blanket termination of parole was legally justifiable.
Immigrant rights lawyer Karen Tumlin of the Justice Action Centre, which led the legal challenge, welcomed the ruling, calling the administration’s move “reckless and illegal.” The court’s decision preserves legal protections and work authorizations for around 400,000 migrants while the case continues.
The Department of Homeland Security had previously issued a Federal Register notice on March 25 announcing the termination of Biden’s parole program, which had covered migrants from several countries including Ukraine, Afghanistan, and Latin American nations.
But on April 25, US District Judge Indira Talwani ruled that the department had acted improperly by canceling parole and work authorizations without the required individual assessments.
Judge Talwani, an Obama appointee, stated that DHS had relied on a flawed legal interpretation that ending parole was essential to enable expedited deportations—an approach she deemed inconsistent with legal norms.
A DHS spokesperson reiterated the Trump administration’s commitment to restoring “rule of law” in immigration policy and said no legal challenge would deter them. The administration may now escalate the matter to the US Supreme Court.
