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This is the message that 350,000 Venezuelans from the US who were granted temporary protected status in 2023 have heard from the federal government since January.
January 17th: TPS protection can be maintained until fall 2026.
January 28th: We are checking whether TPS protection can be maintained.
February 5th: TPS protection expires on April 7th, 2025.
March 31: TPS protections can remain in effect, but lawsuits relating to them are pending.
May 19: TPS protection has already been revoked. probably. We assume.
That last page – technically speaking, a single-page signature order that rejected an order that delayed the termination of the Department of Homeland Security’s TP in Venezuela – the Supreme Court has achieved what law professors believe is the biggest instantaneous “documentation” of immigration in US history. 350,000 people woke up on Monday in legal status in the United States went to bed on Monday.
probably. We assume.
The lack of clarity is crazy. But in a way, it’s the logical endpoint of how TPS holders had to always live for 18 months, and the Trump administration’s claim to pull rugs from under those who filed paperwork in the US in exchange for permission to stay.
Supreme Court Legal Triple Negatives
When you get into the procedural details of how all of this happened, a certain flip-flop doesn’t get too confusing, but here’s it.
In 2023, President Biden decided that deporting anyone there was inappropriate because the situation in Venezuela was bad enough, so the Venezuelans in the US needed a temporary protected status (if there were no other legal status) to remain legally until conditions were improved. He both expanded the TP in Venezuela – allowing people who received the TPS after being able to first renew for 18 months in 2021.
As many as 350,000 people led the government to an offer and were protected until April 2025. Many of them (approximately 67,000) are easily protected in two years under the Biden administration’s “CHNV” (Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela). For example, applying for a TPS set up to expire parole in January 2025 could provide a few extra months of more durable forms of protection, giving the possibility of further expansion if the administrative department chose to provide them.
A few days before his departure, the Biden administration issued a notification that essentially combines the 2021 and 2023 TPS timelines, allowing both to reapply for TPS until September 2026. A few days later, it issued its own declaration, and said it would eventually end the TPS for protected Venezuelans in 2023 and lose its legal status on April 7th.
TPS holders sued the administration via bait and switch. In an order issued a few weeks before its expiration date, a federal judge ordered the DHS to “defer effective date” of its decision to end Venezuela’s TPS, and a lawsuit was underway over the legality of the decision.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the postponement. The Supreme Court overturned it on Monday.
So if the termination of the TPS was already in effect, but it has been postponed and is not now postponed, does that mean it is already implicitly enabled?
The problem is: The Supreme Court did not actually clarify whether the termination was in effect or whether the government had to do anything to make the original April 7 dismissal effective. Litigators in the case will announce how it will be up to the government to make the next move and how they interpret the court’s order. That is, we’ll announce whether all 350,000 Venezuelans already have no status and think they’re likely to be removed, or whether they’ll set a new date. (The litigators are not saying anything legally correct, whatever the government does.
On Tuesday evening, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services webpage on Venezuela’s TP was not updated to reflect Monday’s ruling. It says that work permits issued to TPS holders in 2023 will be automatically expanded until April next year.
Let TPS holders gamble their freedom
The TPS holder is already in “Liminal Status” and cannot be converted to permanent residence. All expiration dates offer the possibility that the president will not grant another extension. Trump’s first term was trying to do it for Haiti, El Salvador and hundreds of thousands of other people. These ends were upheld in court until President Biden took office and dismantled them.
Telling people that they can plan another 18 months of life in the US and telling them they will only have 60 days or more to leave is a different category of arbitrarity. (Technically, the Supreme Court has acknowledged that people who have already applied and received new TPS grants between January 17th and February 5th may be allowed to legally maintain them, but given the processing time of TPS applications, it is very unlikely that such people will exist. Prison Act under Alien Enemies – including at least four active TPs.
The threat of detention and deportation was horrifying. The court deferring the dismissal provided little psychological relief to Venezuelan TPS holders. One Venezuelan advocate described her state of mind in this way to politics a few days after her reprieve.
The Supreme Court order shows why they are offensive. What the court grants, the court can take away. probably. We assume.
In addition to this, there is also the fact that some Venezuelans with TP may be within the 2-year window range due to the effectiveness of CHNV parole. That end has been supported by the court (for now), but the Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to overturn the ruling as well. A decision can come at any time.
The lack of clarity regarding the question of whether TPS has already ended comes down to huge real-world stocks. Should someone from TPS show up to work their next shift with a work permit that was valid on Monday morning but now (under legal terms) that might be valid now, six weeks later? Should they cancel their lease and buy plane tickets or continue studying for the final exam at school? If they are arrested, will the ice agents accept the explanation that no one seems to know if they have a valid paper?
The administration’s strategy is to throw as broadly as possible the net of execution, and to make it clear that even those who are not caught up in it today could be caught up in it tomorrow. However, the rule of law is built on certainty and predictability. The legal regime, where people can take their position from them in one day without even a clear explanation that it happened, completely undermines both of them. Laws that cannot be relied on are not laws that anyone can live with.
Submitted below: Supreme Court
