Trump asks Supreme Court to rebuff lower judge, end deportation amnesty for Venezuelans

The Trump administration on Friday accused lower courts of defying Supreme Court rulings as the Department of Homeland Security asked the justices to step in yet again and allow the end of a Biden-era deportation amnesty program for migrants from Venezuela.

The case has been batted around the courts for months, and the justices previously blocked a district court preliminary injunction that had ordered the president to keep the Temporary Protected Status program running.

After that high court intervention, Judge Edward Chen, an Obama appointee to the court in California, returned with a new ruling — this time a summary judgment — against the Trump administration, again ordering it to keep the deportation amnesty program running.

He said the high court’s previous blockade applied only to the preliminary injunction.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer said that amounted to “disregarding” the Supreme Court’s ruling, which had found the government was likely to prevail in the case.

He said Judge Chen’s do-over ignores that.

“The district court’s new order expressly rests on the same flawed legal grounds as its predecessor — the one this court stayed,” he said.

At issue are more than 300,000 migrants from Venezuela who have been granted TPS, which is a reprieve from deportation and allows migrants to obtain work permits and enjoy some taxpayer benefits.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has tried to end the TPS designation for Venezuela, but immigration groups have challenged the decision as racist and illegal.

Judge Chen agreed that it was racially motivated and said that tainted the proceedings.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has backed Judge Chen.

The case is the latest to highlight a growing problem for the justices, who are dealing with a tsunami of cases stemming from President Trump’s executive actions — and lower court judges who have moved to block the president.

The high court has been issuing interim rulings largely in favor of Mr. Trump, but the lower judges have struggled to apply the decisions to other ongoing cases.

Some lower court judges have said since they are interim rulings issued without full opinions, it’s difficult to figure out how to apply that reasoning to other cases.

Judge Chen, in his decision earlier this month, acknowledged he was going to be appealed.

TPS is supposed to be granted to citizens of countries facing war, natural disaster or political upheaval. The theory is that it gives the countries themselves more room to recover and the migrants a reprieve from returning home to chaos.

It is supposed to last as long as the conditions in the home country persist.

Venezuela remains in upheaval, but Homeland Security has defended the decision to wind down the program, saying the consequences of the massive flow of illegal immigrants from the country demanded a rethink.

Also Friday, Ms. Noem announced she was ending the TPS designation for Syria.

That nation was first designated in 2012 and was renewed periodically since, including most recently by the Biden administration last year.

Ms. Noem gave them 60 days to leave the U.S.

Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant secretary, said conditions in Syria have improved enough that its citizens who don’t have another legal reason to be in the U.S. can return home. And she said America’s security demands it.

“Syria has been a hotbed of terrorism and extremism for nearly two decades, and it is contrary to our national interest to allow Syrians to remain in our country,” she said. “TPS is meant to be temporary.”