Trump DOJ asks Supreme Court to weigh in on judicial fight over temporary protected status for Venezuelans

After being blocked by a federal judge in San Francisco from terminating the temporary protected status of some 350,000 Venezuelans whose status would have expired last month, the Trump administration has taken their petition to the Supreme Court. On Thursday, the high court was asked by the Department of Justice to put a hold on that California ruling and gave challengers until May 8 to respond.

The California judge who put a pause on the order to terminate temporary protected status said that the administration's decision to end them was based on "negative stereotypes." Judge Edward Chen said "Generalization of criminality to the Venezuelan TPS population as a whole is baseless and smacks of racism predicated on generalized false stereotypes."

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had terminated the temporary protected status for the Venezuelans in the US in order to slate them for deportation. This order was blocked by a federal judge. Temporary protected status is only supposed to last for two years, but it has been repeatedly extended, allowing some people on that status to live in the US for years without returning to their home countries.

"So long as the order is in effect, (Noem) must permit hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan nationals to remain in the country, notwithstanding her reasoned determination that doing so is 'contrary to the national interest," the DOJ said in their petition to the court. 

The DOJ further said that the court blocking the termination of these statuses had "wrested control of the nation's immigration policy away from the Executive Branch." They went on to say that "The court's order contravenes fundamental Executive Branch prerogatives and indefinitely delays sensitive policy decisions in an area of immigration policy that Congress recognized must be flexible, fast-paced, and discretionary."

During the Biden administration, the cap on those allowed into the US under temporary protected status was increased and extended. Biden specifically allowed for an increased influx of people from Venezuela. About 725,000 migrants in the country who were granted temporary protected status came in under Biden. It was under Biden that Venezuelans were granted access to the temporary protected status program in the first place. Prior to that, they were not part of the program.

A report from the House Judiciary Committee found that the Biden administration had "abused" temporary protected status as a means to allow over one millions migrants into the US and to shield them from deportation. The FBI indicated that Venezuela is "likely" weaponizing illegal immigration against the US.

By January 22, 2025, there were 614,044 Venezuelans in the program, the vast majority of whom had not entered the US with a valid visa but came in illegally. Most were paroled into the US, meaning they were caught coming across the border and then released into the US.

"By greatly expanding the scope of populations eligible for Temporary Protected Status (TPS), including through new designations, redesignations, and extensions of prior TPS designations, the Biden-Harris Administration attempted to indefinitely protect from deportation hundreds of thousands of aliens from certain countries," the report stated, adding that this "de facto amnesty" was "vastly expanded" under the prior administration."