A federal appeals court has shut down the Trump administration’s bid to end temporary legal protections for hundreds of thousands of migrants from Nicaragua, Venezuela, Haiti, and Cuba.
The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston rejected the administration’s request to overturn a judge’s ruling that blocked the Department of Homeland Security from cutting short a two-year “parole” introduced under former President Joe Biden.
That parole had given legal room for thousands to live and work in the U.S. Trump’s administration tried to wipe it out furthering its aggressive immigration crackdown and aiming to escalate deportations.
Their legal team argued that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had the authority to scrap the program outright and claimed the court was forcing the government to keep “hundreds of thousands of aliens” in the U.S. against its will.
But the appeals panel three judges, all appointed by Democratic presidents disagreed. They ruled that Noem had failed to show her decision was likely to survive legal scrutiny.
Karen Tumlin, a lawyer with the Justice Action Center, called the government’s move “reckless and illegal” and welcomed the court’s stand.
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Still, the administration isn’t backing down. Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said: “The Trump administration is committed to restoring the rule of law to our immigration system. No lawsuit, not this one or any other, is going to stop us from doing that.”
The legal battle stems from the administration’s decision to halt Biden-era parole programs that had allowed migrants from countries including Ukraine, Afghanistan, Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to temporarily stay in the U.S.
Recall tha on the 25th of March, 2025, Homeland Security published a notice revealing plans to terminate the two-year parole for around 400,000 migrants while the case remained unresolved.
However on the 25th of April, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, appointed by President Barack Obama, blocked that action. She said the agency had improperly revoked parole and work authorizations without reviewing individual cases.