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The nation's top court on Friday gave the green light to the Trump administration to remove legal protections from in excess of 300,000 Venezuelan nationals.

Justices' Interim Decision

The justices enacted an interim ruling, which will remain in effect for the duration of the court case are ongoing, freezing a decision by a district judge that had prevented the government from terminating protected immigration status for the migrants from Venezuela.

The dissenting members filed dissents.

Additional TPS Terminations

The executive branch has moved to withdraw various protections that allow migrants to stay in the country and hold jobs lawfully, including revoking TPS for a combined 600k Venezuelan migrants and half a million Haitian nationals who were given legal status during the presidency of Joe Biden.

TPS is awarded for periods of 18 months.

Earlier Judicial Intervention

In May, the justices overturned a temporary injunction that affected a further 350,000 Venezuelans whose protections lapsed earlier this year.

The high court provided no explanation at the time, which is typical in urgent court requests.

“The same result that we reached in May is suitable here,” the court wrote in an unattributed ruling.

Effects on Protected Individuals

Some Venezuelans have been dismissed from work and housing while additional individuals have been arrested and expelled after the court acted the first time, attorneys representing Venezuelans informed the justices.

Judicial Dissent

“I see today’s decision as yet another serious abuse of our interim proceedings,” one justice stated. “Because, respectfully, I cannot abide our frequent, gratuitous and damaging meddling with cases pending in the lower courts while lives hang in the balance, I oppose.”

History of Protected Status

Congress introduced TPS in 1990 to halt removals to countries experiencing environmental catastrophes, civil strife or other dangerous conditions.

The status can be awarded by the homeland security secretary.

Lower Court Findings

The district judge found that the immigration agency acted “with extraordinary speed and in an unusual fashion … for the preordained purpose of expediting termination of Venezuela’s TPS benefits.”

In earlier dismissing the administration's interim application, a different jurist wrote for a unified appeals court that the trial court had found that DHS made its “decisions first and looked for justification for those decisions afterward”.

Judicial Reasoning

The administration’s top supreme court lawyer had asserted in the new court filing that the justices’ May order should also apply to the ongoing proceedings.

“This case is recognized by the court and involves the more common and unsustainable situation of lower courts flouting this court’s decisions on the interim proceedings,” the counsel declared.

The consequence, he said, is that the “new order, identical to the earlier ruling, blocked the nullification and conclusion of TPS concerning in excess of 300,000 foreign nationals based on meritless legal theories”.