A federal appeals court said that President Trump likely has the power to revoke Biden-era “parole” programs that had granted illegal immigrants tentative permission to be in the U.S., rejecting a lower court decision that had tried to tie his hands.
The three-judge panel of the First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — all of them Democratic appointees — said the law does, in fact, give Mr. Trump the power to revoke parole programs root and branch.
The judges also said Homeland Security adequately explained why it was altering course from the Biden administration to revoke the programs early.
Circuit Judge Gustavo Gelpi, writing for the court, said they were cognizant of the potential impact on half a million Venezuelan, Cuban, Nicaraguan and Haitian migrants at issue in the case, but Mr. Trump appears to be following the law in ordering them to wrap up their time here and leave.
The judges’ decision Friday was a significant victory for Mr. Trump, blessing one of his more consequential immigration policy changes.
President Biden had used parole to allow millions of illegal immigrants who lacked visas or formal permission to enter the U.S. to do so anyway.
Previously, parole had usually been used on a case-by-case basis in instances where there was an urgent humanitarian interest or the government had a particular need to let someone in — such as to serve as a witness in a criminal case.
Mr. Biden created near-categorical programs that doled out passes at a rate of thousands a day, justifying it by saying they were going to come illegally anyway and this way they could be funneled into safer and more orderly pathways.
He also suggested some might claim asylum later.
When Mr. Trump took office, he had Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem end the parole programs and go back to only limited grants in specific cases.
District Judge Indira Talwani, an Obama appointee to the court in Massachusetts, said the new administration should have revoked each of the hundreds of thousands of paroles separately.
Judge Gelpi said that’s not the way the law reads.
“The district court held that the statutory text ‘contemplate[s] termination of parole on an individual, rather than categorical, basis.’ We read the statute differently,” Judge Gelpi wrote.
The specific parole program in the case — known by the acronym CHNV for the four nations involved — allowed the migrants to enter as long as they sought someone to promise to be a financial sponsor, and they agreed to fly into U.S. airports, bypassing the actual border.
Other Biden parole programs allowed migrants massed in northern Mexico to enter along the southern boundary as long as they pre-scheduled their arrivals. And the Biden administration used parole to welcome tens of thousands of Afghans and Ukrainians amid turmoil in their countries.
Immigrant rights groups were dismayed by the decision, saying it could undercut all of those programs.
“This ruling is a devastating blow to hundreds of thousands of lawful immigrants and their U.S.-based sponsors who welcomed them into their homes and communities, but this is not the end of our legal fight,” said Anwen Hughes, legal director of Human Rights First.
