Trump Admin Handed Legal Loss as Judge Temporarily Blocks Deportation Plan

A federal judge in Massachusetts temporarily blocked President Donald Trump‘s administration from ending a signature Biden-era program that allowed hundreds of thousands of migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela (CHNV) to enter the country and work legally.

Newsweek reached out to the White House via email on Monday for comment.

Why It Matters

In March, Trump implemented the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a wartime law that grants the commander in chief authority to detain or deport non-citizens.

His administration planned to end the “CHNV parole program” as part of broader efforts to roll back immigration efforts, including shutting down similar protections for Afghan and Cameroonian migrants.

What To Know

Judge Indira Talwani of the Federal District Court in Boston issued an emergency stay order on Monday preventing the termination of parole processes that was set to take effect on April 24.

The Biden administration created this program to provide legal pathways for people from these four nations, allowing them to stay for up to two years with work authorization if they had financial sponsors and passed security checks. More than 500,000 migrants entered the country under the program.

Monday’s ruling preserves legal status for participants in the CHNV program until their originally stated parole end dates.

Without this judicial intervention, program participants would have faced imminent risk of deportation hearings within two weeks. The court specifically stayed both the termination regulation published on March 25 and all individualized notices sent to noncitizens informing them their parole was being revoked without case-by-case review.

This is a developing story and will be updated when more information is available.