Trump and Immigration

Ava Cai

May 30, 2025

President Trump’s second term in office has seen an alarming increase in immigration crackdowns and border security, with a piling of executive orders and infinite policy changes. On Friday, the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to move forward with an emergency request to rescind former President Biden’s humanitarian parole program—a program that expanded immigration admission to the United States in Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela, and Nicaragua—, a determination that tallies a second time in which the Supreme Court has sided with the president recently. This program, established by the former president, protected immigrants fleeing from their countries due to economic and political disturbances. Once applied for and accepted, migrants from these four countries are provided a two-year-long work permit and temporary protection status for “urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit,” according to the government. This action by President Trump and the decision by the Supreme Court terminated the legal status of over 500,000 people living in the United States. 

Two of the court’s justices, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and Justice Sonia Sotomayor, dissented, claiming that the termination of these legal protections would leave migrants with two difficult choices: they would either have to leave the country or become exposed to danger, risking their lives in both scenarios. The two liberal justices said this ruling dismisses the enormous harm experienced by the migrants, even before a final decision is made in the court. Justice Jackson wrote, “It requires next to nothing from the Government concerning irreparable harm. And it undervalues the devastating consequences of allowing the Government to precipitously upend the lives and livelihoods of nearly half a million noncitizens while their legal claims are pending.” 

Just earlier this month, on May 19th, the Supreme Court allowed President Trump to reverse the Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a separate program that provisionally grants around 350,000 Venezuelan immigrants protection and status to live and work in the US. This left thousands of Venezuelans in fear of losing their legal status, a similar situation experienced by many more people under parole. 

Although the Supreme Court’s case is still pending a decision, it gives the Trump administration the freedom to deport people while the case is still in progress. Immigrant rights and advocacy groups challenged the Supreme Court’s ruling, saying, “Class members would be subjected to expedited deportation to the same despotic and unstable countries from which they fled, where many will face serious risks of danger, persecution, and even death.” Lives are evidently on the line, and these next few days are crucial for the Supreme Court, the government, and the United States of America.