The Supreme Court delivered a key victory to President Trump Monday on immigration policy, allowing him to move forward with canceling a special deportation amnesty for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants.
The high court’s order means he can move forward — for now — with revocation of the Biden-era decision to grant Temporary Protected Status to Venezuela. A district judge had ruled against Mr. Trump, but the justices issued a stay of that decision, meaning the president is now free to move forward even as the case percolates in lower courts.
The order was unsigned, but Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson noted her dissent from the ruling.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer had begged the high court to get involved, saying lower courts were running amok in meddling with Executive Branch decisions on immigration.
“That is a classic case of judicial arrogation of core Executive Branch prerogatives and alone warrants correction,” Mr. Sauer told the justices.
TPS is granted to countries that have faced natural disasters, war, pandemic or political instability. The theory is that the nations need space to recover, and their citizens shouldn’t be required to go back amid tough times.
Those granted TPS get a quasi-legal status that includes a stay of deportation and work permits to compete for jobs.
TPS is supposed to end once a country has recovered, but in practice, it’s become a permanent immigration status for many. Hundreds of thousands of Central American migrants have been living under TPS since the turn of the century.
President Biden was particularly prolific with his use of TPS, expanding it from about 300,000 people protected in early 2021 to nearly 1.1 million people as of last December.
Mr. Trump has moved to reel the program back in, and Venezuela is the first big test.
U.S. District Judge Edward Chen, an Obama appointee who sits on the bench in Northern California, had ruled against Mr. Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, finding that they failed to offer a good enough justification for revoking Venezuela’s status.
Judge Chen also said the decision was fueled by “animus” against Venezuelans, based on criticism levied by Mr. Trump and Ms. Noem against Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang.
The high court didn’t reveal its reasoning in Monday’s order putting Judge Chen’s decision on hold.
