President Donald Trump has called on the Supreme Court to strip 350,000 Venezuelans of legal protection as part of a plan to launch a massive deportation.
The move comes after a federal judge in San Francisco extended his temporary protective status (TPS), which was due to expire in April.
The TPS was created by Congress in 1990 and stopped deportation to countries suffering from civil conflicts and natural disasters.
Explaining his decision, District Judge Edward Chen said lifting protections would disrupt hundreds of thousands of lives and cost billions of dollars on the lost economic activity of the economy.
The US government has challenged the ruling, saying it hampers the power over immigration and diplomacy.
The Trump administration raised the issue Thursday in the Supreme Court. On the same day, a federal judge in Texas said the president misused 18th century wartime law.
Trump nominated in 2018, Fernando Rodriguez Jr. decided that the president’s use of the Alien Enemy Act (AEA) to deport Venezuelans was “illegal” and that immigrants would not be deported from Texas.
Earlier this year, Trump invoked the law, claiming that the US was being “invaded” by the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang.
“The declaration does not suggest that an organized group of armed individuals in the direction of Venezuela is envisaged to conquer the country or control part of the country,” Rodriguez wrote.
“Therefore, the language of declaration cannot be read as an explanation of an act that falls under the meaning of “invasion” for the purposes of the AEA. ”
In response to the development, Vice President JD Vance said the administration would “actively” appeal the ruling.
“The judge will not make that decision on whether alien opponents can be deployed,” Vance argued. “I think the US president is the one who determines whether this country is being invaded or not.”
