When Joe Biden was in office, he found creative ways to legalize illegal immigration, including offering protected states for migrants from certain countries.
Trump tried to revoke those protections, and now he is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to make it official.
Just before leaving office in January, Biden threw a massive wrench into Trump’s planned immigration agenda.
Just 10 days before leaving office, Biden extended the protection status of immigrants who entered from countries such as Venezuela, El Salvador, and Ukraine.
The order was poised to give them an additional 18 months without the threat of deportation.
According to reports at the time, this order protected the status of 234,000 El Salvador migrants, 600,000 from Venezuela, and 100,000 from Ukraine.
One week after taking office, Trump looked to revoke Biden’s order for the 600,000 migrants from Venezuela and deport them.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced the decision, which sent immigration advocates over the edge.
For instance, Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council stated, “By taking this action, Secretary Noem is throwing over 600,000 into a state of ongoing bureaucratic limbo. People will no longer have any certainty as to whether they can stay in the country legally through the end of the year."
He went on, “If the Trump administration moves to terminate T.P.S. for over 600,000 Venezuelans, it could also have significant impacts on the economy, as nearly all of those with status are working here legally.”
After Trump’s order was halted by the courts, the administration moved to take its appeal to the Supreme Court.
Judge Edward Chen, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, suspended the order on the pretense that it would disrupt the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, possibly costing billions in economic activity, so he must have read the comments by Reichlin-Melnick.
Chen stated that the government has failed to show how suspending Biden’s program could cause any harm to the country, while Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued the courts are interfering with Trump’s immigration and foreign affairs powers.
I am not sure how this one will go, but based on previous decisions, I think Trump is going to have a hard time winning this case. I will say this, however, and that is that I think Chen’s order is dead wrong. The burden of proof is not on the government to show the harm from the program but instead on the migrants to show a situation of either natural disaster or civil strife exists that would impact their return, as that is why TPS was created in the first place. Legally, Trump has the right position, but we all know that matters very little these days.
