The Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Trump administration to strip legal protections from 350,000 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 emergency 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 disaster 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,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, one of the attorneys for Venezuelan migrants.
First they came for the Venezuelans, but I wasn’t a Venezuelan.