I am so happy to finally report GOOD news from the Supreme Court for President Trump, for immigration, and for America!

Perhaps the rule of law is not quite dead yet!

In an unexpected 8-1 ruling in the Trump Administration’s favor (can you guess who dissented?), the Supreme Court just gave President Trump the green light to revoke legal status for 500,000+ criminal illegal aliens flown in here by the Biden Regime and begin the deportations!

BREAKING: The Supreme Court has cleared the Trump administration to revoke legal status from 500,000+ criminal aliens flown in under the Biden regime.

Now time for the deportations. pic.twitter.com/ETlRmz55Kg

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) May 19, 2025

Quick summary:

Kentanji Brown Jackson was the ONLY Supreme Court Justice to rule against Trump in today’s alien parole decision, which was 8-1.

UNQUALIFIED! She proves it every time. https://t.co/dGpZ5vDASZ pic.twitter.com/Rs19u4359u

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) May 19, 2025

If you’re like me, you might be a little confused at how this squares with the ruling just 3 days ago on May 16th that stopped President Trump from deporting known violent gangbangers….

Here’s a quick summary of how the two cases mesh together:

The May 16, 2025 Ruling

On May 16, 2025, the Supreme Court granted a request by Venezuelan nationals to block their removal from the United States under the Alien Enemies Act (AEA), a law the Trump administration invoked in mid-April 2025 to deport detainees.

The Court did not rule on whether the AEA was applied correctly but acknowledged the “particularly weighty” interests of the Venezuelans, citing risks like the erroneous deportation of individuals to dangerous situations (e.g., Kilmar Abrego Garcia to a prison in El Salvador).

Conservative justices, like Alito and Thomas in their dissent, questioned whether the detainees faced “imminent danger of removal” and defended the District Court’s actions, suggesting the government’s approach might have been procedurally mishandled rather than fundamentally unlawful.

This ruling effectively paused deportations under the AEA, emphasizing humanitarian concerns and procedural fairness for the affected Venezuelans, many of whom were likely part of broader immigration programs or had entered under specific parole conditions.

The May 19, 2025 Ruling

Fast forward to May 19, 2025, and the Supreme Court, in an 8-1 decision (with Justice Ketanji Brown Jacksondissenting), greenlit the Trump administration’s plan to revoke the legal status of over 500,000 immigrants who entered under Biden’s CHNV Humanitarian Parole Program.

This program, covering individuals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, allowed 30,000 monthly entries for a two-year stay with work authorization.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had already signaled in a March 25, 2025 federal register notice its intent to “remove promptly” CHNV parolees without a lawful basis to remain after April 24, 2025, especially those who hadn’t applied for immigration benefits.

The Supreme Court’s May 19 ruling upheld this policy, clearing the way for mass deportations of these individuals, whom the Trump administration labeled “criminal aliens” in the context of the ruling.

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Reconciling the Two Rulings

At first glance, the May 19 decision seems to contradict the May 16 ruling, as both involve immigration enforcement and Venezuelan nationals (a significant portion of CHNV parolees—23% or roughly 122,606 individuals—are Venezuelan). However, there are key differences in the legal frameworks and contexts that likely allowed the Court to rule differently:

Different Legal Mechanisms

May 16 Ruling
Centered on the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law invoked by Trump in March 2025 to target Venezuelan gang members (e.g., Tren de Aragua) and broadly apply to Venezuelans over 14 not lawfully in the U.S. The Court’s decision to block these deportations focused on humanitarian risks and procedural questions about the AEA’s application.

May 19 Ruling
Addressed the CHNV Humanitarian Parole Program, a Biden-era policy under the Immigration and Nationality Act’s parole authority.
The legal question here was whether the Trump administration could terminate this program and revoke the status of its beneficiaries, many of whom had not secured alternative legal status by the April 24, 2025 deadline set by DHS.

The Court’s decision to allow this revocation suggests it viewed the termination of parole status as a distinct executive action within DHS’s authority, separate from the AEA’s wartime deportation powers.

Scope and Specificity

May 16 Ruling
Narrower in scope, focusing on a specific group of Venezuelan detainees and their immediate risk of removalunder the AEA.
The Court prioritized humanitarian claims, possibly due to evidence of potential harm (e.g., the El Salvador deportation error).

May 19 Ruling
Broader in impact, affecting over 500,000 CHNV parolees across four nationalities.
The Court’s 8-1 vote indicates a strong majority viewed the revocation of parole status as legally sound, likely because parole is a discretionary, temporary measure under U.S. law, not a permanent legal status.

The DHS’s prior notice (March 25, 2025) and the expiration of the CHNV program’s two-year terms (many parolees entered in 2023, so their status was expiring in 2025) may have bolstered the government’s case that these individuals no longer had a lawful basis to remain.

Judicial Rationale and Precedent

May 16 Ruling
Left open the question of the AEA’s correct application, suggesting the Court was not ready to endorse its use for mass deportations without further scrutiny.
The humanitarian focus aligns with precedents protecting immigrants from removal to unsafe conditions (e.g., non-refoulement principles).

May 19 Ruling
Aligns with historical deference to executive authority over parole programs.
Parole under the Immigration and Nationality Act is not a guaranteed right; it’s a discretionary tool for humanitarian or public benefit purposes.

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The Court likely saw the Trump administration’s revocation as a permissible policy shift, especially since DHS had provided notice and a pathway (albeit narrow) for parolees to apply for other immigration benefits before the deadline.

The 8-1 vote, with only Justice Jackson dissenting, suggests the conservative majority prioritized executive power over immigration policy here, consistent with their broader jurisprudential leanings.

To put it in perspective….

The Supreme Court just ruled (8-1) that Trump CAN deport 500,000 migrants “legalized” by Biden (illegally)

Perspective: That’s 5x this crowd pic.twitter.com/6dkbxiNCwx

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) May 19, 2025

Fox News had more details:

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to lift a lower court injunction that blocked President Donald Trump’s decision to terminate the protected legal status of hundreds of thousands of migrants living in the U.S., in a win for the administration as it looks to deliver on its hard-line immigration enforcement policies.

The decision clears the way for the Trump administration to move forward with its plans to terminate Biden-era Temporary Protected Status (TPS) protections for roughly 300,000 Venezuelan migrants living in the U.S. and allows the administration to move forward with plans to immediately remove these migrants, which lawyers for the administration argued they should be able to do.

U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer argued as much when he asked the Supreme Court to lift the injunction this month, arguing in an emergency appeal that a lower court judge had overstepped their authority by blocking the administration from ending the program for certain Venezuelans.

“The district court’s reasoning is untenable,” Sauer told the high court, adding that the program “implicates particularly discretionary, sensitive, and foreign-policy-laden judgments of the Executive Branch regarding immigration policy.”

At issue was the TPS program, which allows people from certain countries to live and work in the U.S. legally if they cannot work safely in their home country due to a disaster, armed conflict or other “extraordinary and temporary conditions.”

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The protections were extended during the end of the Biden administration, shortly before Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in February abruptly terminated the program for a specific group of Venezuelan nationals, arguing they were not in the national interest.

In March, U.S. District Judge Edward Chen of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California agreed to keep the protections in place, siding with plaintiffs from the National TPS Alliance in ruling that the termination of the TPS program, which is extended in 18-month increments, is “unprecedented” and suggested that the abrupt termination may have been “predicated on negative stereotypes” about Venezuelan migrants.

Sauer disputed this in the appeal to the Supreme Court. In it, he also accused the lower court judge of improperly intruding on the executive branch’s authority over immigration policy.

If you’re paying close attention, you’ll find this was not a final ruling on the merits, but rather a decision to grant certiorari, meaning the Supreme Court will accept the case and rule on it.

So why lift the stay in the meantime?

That’s the opposite of what the Supreme Court has done thus far in other similar cases, so that signals the Justices are rather confident the Trump Administration will prevail.

Here is a bit longer explanation:

Why SCOTUS Lifted the Stay (Even Before Final Ruling):

Standard for Emergency Relief
The Supreme Court often gets involved at the emergency stage (called the “shadow docket”). To keep a stay in place, the challengers must prove:

They’re likely to win on the legal merits,

They’ll suffer irreparable harm if relief is lifted, and

The balance of harms favors them.

The majority apparently felt these standards weren’t met — even though they didn’t explain why.

Deference to Executive Authority
SCOTUS often defers to the President and agencies (like DHS) on immigration matters. The Court may believe the executive branch has wide latitude to end TPS if it claims conditions in a country have improved or if the policy rationale has shifted.

Political or Strategic Silence
The unsigned, unexplained order may have been a compromise among the justices. Sometimes the Court acts without explanation to avoid making a full legal precedent or revealing internal disagreements.

Shadow Docket Pattern
This is part of a recent trend: SCOTUS increasingly makes major decisions through brief, unexplained orders — often late at night — without full briefings or oral argument. Critics say this undermines transparency.

In Short:

Yes, leaving the stay would have been more cautious. But SCOTUS lifted it anyway, without giving reasons, likely due to deference to the executive branch and a belief that the administration’s action wasn’t obviously illegal — or simply as a procedural decision without weighing in on the full merits of the case.

Only Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented publicly.

This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport.

View the original article here.