U.S. judge halts revocation of immigrants’ legal status

NEW YORK, United States (AFP) — A federal judge on Monday blocked US President Donald Trump’s administration from quickly revoking the legal status of hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Haiti.

The ruling by District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston is the latest order against Trump’s rapid push to carry out mass deportations, particularly targeting Latin Americans.

In March, the administration said it was moving to revoke the legal status of some 532,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans who came to the US under a “parole” program initially launched by former president Joe Biden in October 2022.

“The court grants emergency relief staying the Termination of Parole Processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans,” Talwani wrote in her order.

The parole program allowed entry to the US for two years for up to 30,000 migrants per month from the four countries, which have grim human rights records.

In her order, Talwani said the Trump administration had acted on a flawed interpretation of immigration law, with expedited removal applicable to non-citizens entering the US illegally, but not those authorized to be in the country, such as through the parole program.

Under Trump’s revocation, the immigrants would have lost their legal protection effective 24 April just 30 days after the Department of Homeland Security published its order in the Federal Register.

Trump has vowed to deport “millions” of undocumented migrants in his second term, after running an election campaign that focused on illegal immigration.

Among other measures, he has invoked rare wartime legislation to fly hundreds of alleged members of a Venezuelan gang to El Salvador, which is imprisoning the migrants.

Palestinian student detained

Meanwhile, US immigration authorities on Monday arrested another Columbia University student who participated in pro-Palestinian campus protests, detaining him as he attended an interview to become an American citizen.

Mohsen Mahdawi’s lawyers, in a court filing seeking his release and halt to any imminent deportation, also claimed Trump’s mounting crackdown on immigrant student protesters violates the US Constitution — the latest judicial challenge to the Republican adminstration.

A Palestinian born in the occupied West Bank, Mahdawi has been a legal US permanent resident since 2015, was set to graduate next month and planned to attend a Columbia master’s program this fall, the court filing said.

He is the co-founder of a Palestinian student group at Columbia alongside Mahmoud Khalil, a face of the movement who Trump has also been trying to expel since his March arrest.

“Mohsen Mahdawi of White River Junction, Vermont, walked into an immigration office for what was supposed to be the final step in his citizenship process. Instead, he was arrested and removed in handcuffs by plain-clothed, armed, individuals with their faces covered,” Senator Bernie Sanders said in a statement signed by other Vermont lawmakers.