BOSTON: A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration’s push to terminate the legal status of more than 8,400 family members of US citizens and green card holders who moved to the United States from seven Latin American countries.
Boston-based US District Judge Indira Talwani issued a preliminary injunction late on Saturday that prevents the Department of Homeland Security from ending the humanitarian parole granted to thousands of people from Cuba, Haiti, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
They had been allowed to move to the United States under family reunification parole programs that were created or modernized by Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration.
Since Republican President Donald Trump succeeded Biden, his administration has ramped up immigration enforcement with $170 billion budgeted for immigration agencies through September 2029, a historic sum.
Under the family reunification programmes, US citizens or lawful permanent residents, also known as green card holders, could apply to serve as sponsors for family members in those seven countries, letting them live in the US while they waited for their immigrant visas to become available.
The Homeland Security Department said on December 12 it was ending the programmes on the grounds that they were inconsistent with Trump’s immigration enforcement priorities and were abused to allow “poorly vetted aliens to circumvent the traditional parole process.”
