Deportations: A crackdown on legal migrants
The Supreme Court will allow Trump to revoke protections for over 500,000 immigrants

President Trump "wants to put big deportation numbers on the scoreboard," said Philip Bump in The Washington Post, and the Supreme Court just gave him an assist. In a 7-2 emergency ruling last week, the justices cleared the way for the Trump administration to revoke the Biden-era humanitarian parole protections awarded to 530,000 immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela while litigation continues in lower courts. Those people "came here legally and with the government's blessing"—just like the 350,000 Venezuelans who lost temporary protected status after a similar ruling in May. But Trump is frustrated that he's lagging on his pledge to remove "millions" of undocumented migrants—about 17,200 people were deported in April, 29% more than a year earlier—and so his administration is trying to deport "just about anyone it can conceivably fit into the system." Meeting deportation quotas by "hunting down actual criminals is hard," said Catherine Rampell, also in the Post. It's much easier for agents to "catch" de-documented migrants who voluntarily told the government where they live.
It may seem unfair, said Dan McLaughlin in National Review, but the administration is acting within its powers. The lower-court judges who tried to block the White House from rolling back immigrant parole programs treated them as "a one-way ratchet in which Trump was not allowed to undo what Biden had done by the same means." The justices have so far found the right balance on immigration: giving the administration "a lot of room to maneuver in making general decisions of immigration policy," while "drawing a red line around the application of laws to individual immigrants and defending their right" to due process.
Constitutional or not, Americans will be hurt by this mass revocation of visas, said Valentina Palm in The Palm Beach Post. About 80% of the affected humanitarian parole recipients live in Florida, and many work in critical "industries facing labor shortages, including health care, education, hospitality, and construction." Economic concerns aside, no one should "be forced to return to a dictatorship in Venezuela, or gang rule in Haiti, because of the whim of a particular president," said the Miami Herald in an editorial. This "chaotic scenario" would never have happened if Congress had done its job years ago and passed meaningful immigration reform. But our leaders failed to step up—and now "our neighbors, friends, relatives, and co-workers" will pay the price.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Citizenship: Trump order blocked again
Feature After the Supreme Court restricted nationwide injunctions, a federal judge turned to a class action suit to block Trump's order to end birthright citizenship
-
Loyalty tests: The purge at the FBI
Feature Kash Patel is conducting polygraph tests on FBI agents to weed out anyone speaking badly about him
-
Epstein: Why MAGA won't move on
Feature Trump's supporters are turning on him after he denied the existence of Epstein's client list
-
Arms for Ukraine and an ultimatum for Russia
Feature Donald Trump reverses course, sending weapons to Ukraine and threatening Russia with tariffs
-
Trump officials who hold more than one job
IN THE SPOTLIGHT Wearing multiple hats has become the norm inside a White House known for a revolving door of functionaries and officials
-
Norman Tebbit: fearsome politician who served as Thatcher's enforcer
In the Spotlight Former Conservative Party chair has died aged 94
-
Elon Musk's America Party: a billionaire's folly?
Talking Point One-time Trump ally has acquired a taste for political power and clearly wants more of it
-
Sickness benefits: an unaffordable burden?
Talking Point A welfare bill 'debacle' caused by 'sickfluencers' who are beating the system