A federal judge in Boston has blocked the Trump Administration’s attempt to revoke legal status and work permits for hundreds of thousands of individuals residing in the United States under a humanitarian parole program.
U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani announced that a March 25 Federal Register Notice concerning the new regulation titled “Termination of Parole Processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans” will be stayed for the time being.
The administration was found to have failed to conduct a “case-by-case review” of the “previously granted parole and work authorization issued to noncitizens paroled into the United States” prior to the scheduled end of their parole status.
“The early termination, without any case-by-case justification, of legal status for noncitizens who have complied with DHS programs and entered the country lawfully undermines the rule of law,” Judge Talwani wrote in her order.
The case, titled Svitlana Doe v. Noem, lists as defendants the Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, Todd Lyons, the Acting Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Pete Flores, the Acting Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Kika Scott, the Trump Administration’s “Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services,” and President Donald Trump.
The issues stem from a pair of late-January Executive Orders signed by Trump alongside several subsequent departmental memos, which culminated in the publication of new regulations by the Department of Homeland Security.
These regulations declared that the federal government was “terminating the categorical parole programs for inadmissible aliens from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.”
The regulation states, “Parolees without a lawful basis to remain in the United States following this termination of the CHNV parole programs must depart the United States before their parole termination date.”
It further indicated that “aliens who entered the United States under the CHNV parole programs” who did not self-deport would be targeted for removal “promptly.”
The new regulation suggests that the need for CHNV humanitarian parole programs, according to Secretary Noem’s official viewpoint, had passed.
Furthermore, not terminating parole early could force DHS to “initiate section 240 removal proceedings to effectuate” the removal of individuals previously granted parole.
With immigration courts already facing a years-long backlog, the inability to terminate parole early could result in further burdening the courts, which the DHS found “unacceptable.”
Judge Talwani, however, deemed that reasoning insufficient to justify declaring hundreds of thousands of individuals unlawfully present and subject to forced removal.
“Defendants have offered no substantial reason or public interest that justifies forcing individuals who were granted parole into the United States for a specified duration to leave (or move into undocumented status) in advance of the original date their parole was set to expire,” she wrote.
“Nor is it in the public interest to summarily declare that hundreds of thousands of individuals are no longer considered lawfully present in the country, such that these individuals cannot legally work in their communities or provide for themselves and their families,” she continued.
As a result of the ruling, the March 25 published regulation and any “individualized notices” sent to non-citizen parolees “notifying them that their parole is being revoked without case-by-case review” are stayed.
The judge also denied the Trump Administration’s request for a stay pending their appeal of the case, concluding that the administration failed to demonstrate “a strong showing that they are likely to succeed on the merits or that they will be injured absent a stay.”
The White House did not provide an immediate comment in response to the ruling.
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