Supreme Court allows Trump to strip legal protections from 350,000 Venezuelans who risk deportation

FILE - The Supreme Court is seen in Washington Nov AP Photo J Scott Applewhite File AP J Scott Applewhite FILE - The Supreme Court is seen in Washington Nov AP Photo J Scott Applewhite File AP J Scott Applewhite WASHINGTON AP The Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Trump administration to strip legal protections from Venezuelans potentially exposing them to deportation The court s order with only one noted dissent puts on hold a ruling from a federal judge in San Francisco that kept in place Temporary Protected Status for the Venezuelans that would have otherwise expired last month The justices provided no rationale which is common in urgency appeals The status allows people already in the United States to live and work legally because their native countries are deemed unsafe for return due to natural calamity or civil strife The high court s order appears to be the single largest action in modern American history stripping any group of non-citizens of immigration status mentioned Ahilan Arulanantham one of the attorneys for Venezuelan refugees This decision will force families to be in an impossible position either choosing to survive or choosing stability disclosed Cecilia Gonzalez Herrera who sued to try and stop the Trump administration from revoking legal protections from her and others like her Venezuelans are not criminals Gonzalez Herrera mentioned We all deserve the chance to thrive without being sent back to danger she commented The ramifications for the hundreds of thousands of people affected aren t yet clear Arulanantham stated The Homeland Assurance Department did not forthwith comment on the Supreme Court s order A federal appeals court had earlier rejected the administration s request to put the order on hold while the lawsuit continues A hearing is set for next week in front of U S District Judge Edward Chen who had paused the administration s plans The scenario is the latest in a string of crisis appeals President Donald Trump s administration has made to the Supreme Court multiple of them related to immigration and involving Venezuela Last week the cabinet appealed the court to allow it to end humanitarian parole for hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Cuba Haiti Nicaragua and Venezuela setting them up for foreseen deportation as well The high court also has been involved in slowing Trump s efforts to swiftly deport Venezuelans accused of being gang members to a prison in El Salvador under an th century wartime law called the Alien Enemies Act The complex economic and political problem in Venezuela has driven more than million people to leave the South American nation since Venezuela s bulk latest economic troubles pushed year-over-year inflation in April to The latest chapter even prompted President Nicol s Maduro to declare an economic crisis last month Maduro whose reelection last year to a third term has been condemned internationally as illegitimate also has cracked down on his political opponents In the dispute over TPS the administration has moved aggressively to withdraw various protections that have allowed immigrants to remain in the country including ending the temporary protected status for a total of Venezuelans and Haitians That status is granted in -month increments Venezuela was first designated for TPS in Haiti in The protections had been set to expire April but Chen revealed that the expiration threatened to severely disrupt the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and could cost billions in lost economic activity Chen who was appointed to the bench by Democratic President Barack Obama discovered the leadership hadn t shown any harm caused by keeping the initiative alive But Solicitor General D John Sauer wrote on behalf of the administration that Chen s order impermissibly interferes with the administration s power over immigration and foreign affairs In addition Sauer informed the justices people affected by ending the protected status might have other legal options to try to remain in the country because the decision to terminate TPS is not equivalent to a final removal order Congress created TPS in to prevent deportations to countries suffering from natural disasters or civil strife Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson announced she would have rejected the administration s urgency appeal Associated Press writers Regina Garcia Cano in Caracas Venezuela Gisela Solomon in Miami and Lindsay Whitehurst contributed to this assessment Source