- “When 600,000 lawfully present immigrants can be stripped of legal status without so much as an explanation, none of our rights are safe.” – Jessica Bansal, National Day Laborer Organizing Network
LOS ANGELES – In a brief, three-paragraph order with no legal reasoning provided, the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday granted the Trump administration’s request to stay a federal court ruling that had protected Venezuelans with Temporary Protected Status (TPS).
The ruling, which immediately exposes hundreds of thousands of people to detention and deportation, has been widely condemned by immigrant-rights advocates, legal scholars, and attorneys representing TPS holders.
The Court’s unsigned order effectively reinstates Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s decision to terminate TPS protections for Venezuelans.
The stay halts the lower court’s decision by U.S. District Judge Edward M. Chen, who ruled last month that Noem’s action violated the Administrative Procedure Act. Judge Chen had found that the administration failed to follow proper procedures and ignored evidence showing that Venezuela remains in the midst of a humanitarian crisis.
The Supreme Court’s ruling leaves approximately 350,000 Venezuelans at risk of deportation immediately, and another 250,000 at risk when their TPS expires on Nov. 7. For hundreds of thousands of people who have lived, worked, and paid taxes legally under TPS—many for years—the decision represents a devastating reversal.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined in dissent by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, condemned the majority’s use of the so-called “shadow docket,” which allows the Court to issue major decisions without full briefing or oral argument.
In her dissent, Justice Jackson wrote that the Court “once again use[s] our equitable power (but not our opinion-writing capacity) to allow this administration to disrupt as many lives as possible, as quickly as possible.” She called the majority’s decision “another grave misuse of our emergency docket,” adding that it privileges “the bald assertion of unconstrained executive power over countless families’ pleas for the stability our government has promised them.”
Cecilia Gonzalez, a plaintiff and member of the National TPS Alliance, said the decision will upend lives across the country.
“It is heartbreaking that the justices rubber-stamped this administration’s unlawful cancellation of TPS,” Gonzalez said. “This decision will upend the lives of hundreds of thousands of law-abiding, hard-working TPS holders like myself. Today, I am grieving for the families who will be separated, for the parents who will lie awake worrying about providing for their children, for the people who will go without medical treatment, who will lose their jobs, their stability, everything they have worked for. But tomorrow, we will come together and continue to push for our rights, our dignity, and our freedom.”
Jose Palma, coordinator of the National TPS Alliance, said the Court’s decision calls into question its commitment to impartial justice.
“Today’s Supreme Court decision raises doubts about whether the nation’s highest court is deciding based on the law or merely rubber-stamping President Trump’s actions,” Palma said. “Venezuelan TPS holders followed all the rules, and still find themselves stripped overnight of their lawful status. We cannot—and will not—remain silent in the face of such injustice. And we invite everyone to join us on a Week of Action to Protect TPS Families from October 6 to 10. Because one thing is very clear: only the people will save the people.”
Jessica Bansal, an attorney with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), said the ruling reveals the precariousness of legal protections for immigrants under the current administration. “When 600,000 lawfully present immigrants can be stripped of legal status without so much as an explanation, none of our rights are safe,” Bansal said.
Ahilan Arulanantham, co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy (CILP) at the UCLA School of Law, described the order as an unprecedented expansion of the Court’s “shadow docket” authority.
“Today’s three-paragraph edict has now extended the Supreme Court’s shadow docket power to the final judgments of lower courts, beyond mere interim rulings,” Arulanantham said. “This is perhaps the most extreme sign that the Supreme Court has abandoned law for politics. There is no way under law to make sense of the vast new power the Court has taken for itself. Nor can this ruling be reconciled with the Court’s rulings in many other cases, including its recent decisions allowing lower court orders to stop pro-immigrant policies during the Biden administration. Tellingly, the Court does not even try. Its decisions make perfect sense only if we recognize the truth staring us in the face: that the Supreme Court has left the business of law entirely.”
Emi MacLean, senior staff attorney at the ACLU Foundation of Northern California, said the decision defies both the evidence and the law. “This decision is heartbreaking, callous and lawless,” she said. “Without reasoning, the Supreme Court ignored a district court’s final decision—based on evidence and argument—and issued an unexplained order that rips humanitarian legal status from 600,000 people practically overnight. If the law means anything, the government’s baseless request should have been denied. Instead, the Supreme Court has allowed Secretary Noem to exercise unbridled power that has no basis in law.”
Erik Crew, an attorney at the Haitian Bridge Alliance, said the ruling underscores how the Court has abandoned its duty to prevent irreparable harm. “This case is not over,” he said. “The people we represent deserve better from the United States than these unreasoned, emergency-docket takings of their lawful protections from irreparable harm. I could not agree more with Justice Jackson’s dissent. We proceed to the arguments on the merits at the 9th Circuit.”
Cecilia Wang, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the Supreme Court has once again ignored the rule of law. “Once again, the Supreme Court has vitiated a well-reasoned district court opinion, leaving hundreds of thousands of people in danger of losing their jobs and being detained and deported,” Wang said. “The Court is throwing aside its standards to greenlight the Trump administration’s lawless actions. The damage to the rule of law as well as directly affected American families is profound.”
The plaintiffs in the case are represented by the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, the ACLU Foundations of Northern and Southern California, the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at UCLA School of Law, and the Haitian Bridge Alliance. Advocates say they will continue to fight in court and in Congress for permanent protections for TPS holders, many of whom have lived in the United States for decades, raised families, and built deep community ties.
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