The Supreme Court on Friday allowed the Trump administration to temporarily pause the Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela (CHNV) parole program.
The Supreme Court’s order effectively means the Trump administration’s initial decision to terminate the program, and thus, individuals in the program would lose their legal status to remain in the U.S., is temporarily in effect. The Supreme Court’s order sends the decision back to the First Circuit Court of Appeals, which had earlier declined to rule on the case after appeal from a district court.
Background
President Trump directed DHS to terminate the CHNV parole program in an executive order signed in January 2025.
In late March 2025, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced it would end the CHNV parole program in one month, effective April 24.
On April 10, Boston-based District Court Judge Indira Talwani blocked the DHS’s attempt to end the program, arguing that the justification for termination was based on an incorrect reading of the law and ultimately siding with a plaintiff’s group known as the Justice Action Center. She ultimately ruled that federal law required parole to be exercised on a case-by-case basis, rather than categorically terminating the program.
Subsequently, the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to intervene, arguing that the DHS had not shown that the termination of the program was likely to be sustained on appeal.
The Trump administration appealed this decision and sought the Supreme Court’s intervention.
The Supreme Court’s decision today now sends the case back to the 1st Circuit for further ruling. After such a ruling, the Trump administration could appeal again to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court’s order provided no reasoning for the decision, a typical feature of emergency relief rulings. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented.
What is the CHNV Parole Program?
The Immigration and Nationality Act grants the Secretary of Homeland Security narrow authority to confer “parole status” for individuals into the U.S. “temporarily under such conditions as DHS may prescribe only on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.”
The CHNV parole program (for Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela) was created in 2022 to allow individuals from the four designated countries, and their immediate family members, to request authorization to travel to the United States in order to be considered for parole status. They could then remain in the country for two years under parole status.
This is a different program from the DHS’s Temporary Protected Status (TPS).
DHS’s Federal Register posting noted that approximately 532,000 individuals were granted authorization to enter the U.S. under the CHNV program.
