US judge blocks Trump administration's push to end legal status of 8,400 migrants

A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration's push to terminate the legal status of more than 8,400 family members of U.S. citizens and green card holders who moved to the United States from seven Latin American countries.

Boston-based U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani issued a preliminary injunction late on Saturday that prevents the Department of Homeland Security from ending the humanitarian parole granted to thousands of people from Cuba, Haiti, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

They had been allowed to move to the United States under family reunification parole programs that were created or modernized by Democratic President Joe Biden's administration.

Since Republican President Donald Trump succeeded Biden, his administration has ramped up immigration enforcement with $170 billion budgeted for immigration agencies through September 2029, a historic sum.

Under the family reunification programs, U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents, also known as green card holders, could apply to serve as sponsors for family members in those seven countries, letting them live in the U.S. while they waited for their immigrant visas to become available.

The Homeland Security Department said on December 12 it was ending the programs on the grounds that they were inconsistent with Trump's immigration enforcement priorities and were abused to allow "poorly vetted aliens to circumvent the traditional parole process."

The termination was originally set to take effect January 14, but Talwani issued a temporary restraining order blocking it for 14 days while she considered whether to issue Saturday's longer-term injunction.

Talwani said the department, led by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, had provided no support for its fraud concerns or considered whether individuals could feasibly return to their home countries, where many had sold homes or left jobs.

"The Secretary could not provide a reasoned explanation of the agency's change in policy without acknowledging these interests," wrote Talwani, who was appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama. "Accordingly, failure to do so was arbitrary and capricious."

The department did not respond to a request for comment.

The ruling came in a class action lawsuit pursued by immigrant rights advocates challenging the administration's broader rollback of temporary parole granted to hundreds of thousands of migrants.

Talwani earlier in that case blocked the administration from ending grants of parole to about 430,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, but the Supreme Court lifted her order, which an appeals court later overturned.

-Nate Raymond/Reuters