Judge will halt Trump administration from ending humanitarian parole for people from four countries

A federal judge said Thursday that she will prevent the Trump administration from ordering hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans with temporary legal status to leave the country later this month.

A federal judge said Thursday that she will prevent the Trump administration from ordering hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans with temporary legal status to leave the country later this month. The ruling is a significant, although perhaps temporary, setback for the administration as it dismantles Biden-era policies that created new and expanded pathways for people to live in the United States, generally for two years with work authorization. US District Judge Indira Talwani said she would issue a stay on an order for more than 500,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans to leave the country, sparing them until the case advances to the next phase. Their permits were to be canceled April 24. During a hearing, Talwani repeatedly questioned the government’s assertion that it could end humanitarian parole for the four nationalities. She argued that immigrants in the program who are here legally now face an option of “fleeing the country” or staying and “risk losing everything.” “The nub of the problem here is that the secretary, in cutting short the parole period afforded to these individuals, has to have a reasoned decision,” Talwani said, adding that the explanation for ending the program was “based on an incorrect reading of the law.” “There was a deal and now that deal has been undercut,” she said later in the hearing.