A federal judge signaled on Friday that she intends to halt, at least temporarily, the Trump administration’s move to shut down a program that granted short-term legal protection to more than 10,000 relatives of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents.
During a court hearing, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani stated that she expects to issue a temporary restraining order, although she did not specify when it would be released. The dispute sits within a wider push by the administration to roll back temporary immigration protections and comes just days after another federal judge allowed hundreds of South Sudanese nationals to continue living and working legally in the United States.
“The government, having invited people to apply, is now laying traps between those people and getting the green card,” Justin Cox, an attorney with the Justice Action Center who argued on behalf of the plaintiffs, told the court. “That is incredibly inequitable.”
At the center of the case is the Family Reunification Parole program, known as FRP, which applies to individuals from Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, and Honduras. The program, introduced during the Biden administration, allowed approved family members to enter the United States lawfully while waiting for permanent residency. Most participants are set to lose those protections by Jan. 14 after the Department of Homeland Security ended the program late last year.
Although only five individuals are named as plaintiffs, their attorneys are requesting that the court ensure any ruling extends to all those covered by the FRP initiative.
“Although in a temporary status, these parolees did not come temporarily; they came to get a jump-start on their new lives in the United States, typically bringing immediate family members with them,” the plaintiffs wrote in their motion. “Since they arrived, FRP parolees have gotten employment authorization documents, jobs, and enrolled their kids in school.”
Government lawyers argued in court filings and during the hearing that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has clear authority to terminate parole programs and that sufficient notice was given through publication in the Federal Register. They also maintained that ending FRP was justified on national security grounds, asserting that participants had not been properly vetted and that agency resources could be better directed elsewhere.
“Parole can be terminated at any time,” government attorney Katie Rose Talley told the judge. “That is what is being done. There is nothing unlawful about that.”
While Talwani acknowledged the government’s power to end the program, she questioned the manner in which it was carried out. She pressed government attorneys to explain how participants were directly informed of the termination, asking whether written notices such as letters or emails were sent, rather than relying solely on a public registry notice.
“I understand why plaintiffs feel like they came here and made all these plans and were going to be here for a very long time,” Talwani said. “I have a group of people who are trying to follow the law. I am saying to you that, we as Americans, the United States needs to.”
Her comments come against a shifting legal backdrop. Lower courts have often moved to preserve temporary protections for certain immigrant groups. However, in May, the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to proceed with removing temporary legal status from hundreds of thousands of immigrants, increasing the number of people potentially facing deportation to nearly one million.
In one decision, the justices lifted a lower court order that had kept humanitarian parole protections in place for more than 500,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. That ruling followed an earlier decision permitting the administration to revoke temporary legal status from about 350,000 Venezuelan migrants.
As is common with emergency docket cases, the Supreme Court offered no explanation for its decision. Two justices issued public dissents, AP reported.
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