Judge blocks Homeland Security from canceling ‘parole’ for migrant family reunification

A federal judge ruled Saturday that the Trump administration can’t shut down “parole” status for some family reunification migrants, saying the Department of Homeland Security failed to properly notify them of their impending loss of status.

The Family Reunification Parole program, which had allowed people from certain nations to remain in the U.S. despite lacking firm legal permission, was supposed to shut down on Jan. 14. They then were to face the possibility of deportation.

But U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, an Obama appointee to the court in Massachusetts, said the law and Homeland Security’s own policies require a written notice be given to each person losing their parole status. She said that didn’t appear to happen.

“Based on a preliminary review of the issue for purposes of a temporary restraining order, the court finds that plaintiffs have a substantial likelihood of success on their argument that the defendants failed to provide proper notice of DHS’s decision to revoke grants of parole under the FRP program,” Judge Talwani wrote.

Parole is a special permission to be in the U.S. even though the recipient lacks a legal visa. The Biden administration gave parole to millions of migrants through a series of programs. The Trump administration has moved to shut down those avenues.

One is the Family Reunification Program, which grants parole to spouses, siblings or parents who likely had a path to the U.S. based on their relationship to an American citizen or legal permanent resident.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem concluded that the program had failed in its goals, and she ordered it shut down.

The Department of Justice said in court filings that the government did give written notice of the termination in the form of a document detailing the decision in the Federal Register. The department also said parolees’ immigration files at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services were updated to reflect the change in the program.

But Judge Talwani said the law requires “written notice to the alien.” She said impersonal publication in a government document doesn’t meet that requirement.

And she said it’s “not clear” that the change in a USCIS online account also would qualify.