Updated May 19, 2025 at 8:06 PM EDT
The Supreme Court on Monday allowed, for now, the Trump administration to remove legal protections for roughly 350,000 Venezuelans now living in the U.S., under a program that had protected them from deportation known as Temporary Protected Status (TPS).
The court's decision allows the Trump administration to end TPS for this group pending appeal of the case, paving the way for possible deportations soon. A federal judge paused the administration's plans on TPS a week before it was scheduled to end on April 7, resulting in the Trump administration filing an emergency application to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Tricia McLaughlin, the Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary, called the ruling "a win for the American people and the safety of our communities."
The court's unsigned brief did not elaborate on its reasons, which is common in emergency orders before the high court. The court did say that Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson would have denied the application.
"From what we can tell, this is the single largest action in modern American history, stripping any group of non-citizens of immigration status," Ahilan Arulanantham, the co-director for Center for Immigration Law and Policy at UCLA, and one of the lawyers representing the Venezuelans, told reporters Monday.
It's unclear what happens now with the nearly 350,000 Venezuelans who got TPS in 2023. Arulanantham said one reading of the decision is that they have effectively lost their status and employment authorization.
The decision does not affects the approximately 250,000 Venezuelans who were given the protection in 2021, but lawyers said Monday's order is not a good signal for them.
Under the law, the Secretary of Homeland Security has the power to grant TPS to immigrants of a specific country if conditions there "temporarily prevent the country's nationals from returning safely, or in certain circumstances, where the country is unable to handle the return of its nationals adequately."
The conditions include ongoing armed conflict and environmental disasters. People who have TPS cannot be removed from the U.S., and are allowed to get a work permit.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had moved to end an 18-month TPS extension granted by the Biden administration. Venezuelans affected by the move filed suit, alleging procedural violations and racial bias.
Venezuelans in the U.S. with TPS are divided into two buckets: those who got it in 2021 when the Biden administration initially designated Venezuela for TPS, and those who got it when the program was extended in 2023.
The Supreme Court decision applies to the 2023 group of immigrants. Those who got the protected status in 2021 are expected to lose it later this year when the Trump administration said it plans to let the current program expire.
About 8 million people have left Venezuela since 2014 due to political persecution, violence, and a lack of food and access to essential services. In 2024, Nicolás Maduro won a third six-year term in a race contested as fraudulent by the opposition. After protests broke throughout the country, Maduro's forces arrested more than 2,000 people, including more than 100 minors.
Plaintiff Cecilia González left Venezuela in 2017. She said the ruling is nothing more than devastating.
"This administration and their cruel choices are disregarding any basic humanity that we are seeking for," González told reporters Monday. "Returning to Venezuela is not safe at all — the administration has acknowledged the risk."
Secretary Noem has said "permitting Venezuelan nationals to remain temporarily in the United States is contrary to the U.S. national interest." In February, Noem said conditions in Venezuela have improved including "the economy, public health, and crime that allow for these nationals to be safely returned to their home country."
At the same time, the U.S. State Department continues to advise Americans to not travel to Venezuela, the highest travel advisory level. "Do not travel to or remain in Venezuela due to the high risk of wrongful detention, torture in detention, terrorism, kidnapping, arbitrary enforcement of local laws, crime, civil unrest, and poor health infrastructure," according to the advisory, reissued May 12.
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