The U.S. Supreme Court has allowed the Trump administration to cancel temporary protections for over 500,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, triggering a fresh U.S. deportation scare.
This means many of them could now face deportation, even though they had legal permission to live and work in the U.S. through a special program started by the immediate past President Joe Biden.
This change has caused fear and confusion in migrant communities. Many people affected have been living in the U.S. for more than a year. Some have jobs, homes, and children in American schools.
Speaking after the decision, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said she was deeply concerned. “The human consequences of today’s decision are devastating,” she wrote. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson also disagreed with the ruling. She said the move “threatens to upend the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.”
The Biden-era program, called CHNV, allowed up to 30,000 migrants each month from the four countries to come legally, as long as they passed security checks and had U.S.-based sponsors.
The Trump administration argues that the program was always meant to be temporary. A government lawyer said, “The law gives the Department of Homeland Security full power to end parole programs when needed.”
Reacting to the fresh U.S. deportation scare that the ruling has thrown up, Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council said this decision could become “the largest mass illegalization event in modern U.S. history.” This comes as many migrant advocates have said it unfairly puts thousands of families at risk and could break up households where parents may now be deported while their children remain in the U.S.
For now, the case is going back to a lower appeals court. But affected migrants are afraid and uncertain about what will happen next. Advocacy groups are urging the courts and Congress to find a solution that protects those who followed the rules and now face losing everything.
According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) figures, over 135,000 deportations occurred in the first 100 days of 2025 amid the U.S. deportation scare that enveloped immigrants’ communities since President Trump returned for his second term.
