500,000 migrants lose right to temporarily live, work in US after Supreme Court nod

Over 500,000 migrants have lost their right to temporarily live and work in the United States after the Supreme Court let the Donald Trump administration immediately strip their legal right. Migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela have been affected by this ruling. This puts 532,000 people in the US at the risk of deportation.

Despite two dissenting opinions, the high court allowed the Department of Homeland Security to end the parole programs that had granted temporary legal status to migrants from four countries.

Two of the court's three liberal justices, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor, publicly dissented. They had earlier warned of the “devastating consequences”, affecting “lives and livelihoods of nearly half a million noncitizens while their legal claims are pending.”

Earlier, the Supreme Court had also permitted Donald Trump administration to end a deportation protection called temporary protected status that had been granted under Biden to about 350,000 Venezuelans living in the United States. Also Read | Trump Administration offers $1,000 to illegal migrants who voluntarily self-deport

By giving nod to the Trump administration, the Supreme Court put on hold Boston-based US District Judge Indira Talwani's order halting the administration's move to end the immigration “parole” granted to 532,000 of these migrants by Joe Biden.

What is immigration parole?

Under the United States laws, immigration parole grants temporary permission for “urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.”

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The parole program allowed entry into the United States for two years for up to 30,000 migrants per month from the four countries, which have grim human rights records. It allows its recipients to live and work in the United States.

Former President Joe Biden used parole as part of his administration's approach to deter illegal immigration at the US-Mexican border.