BOSTON — A federal judge said Friday she expects to temporarily block the Trump administration from ending a parole program that provides temporary legal protections to family members of U.S. citizens and green card holders, setting up an emergency fight over how the government notified recipients and whether it acted lawfully.
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani said during a hearing that she planned to issue a temporary restraining order, though she did not indicate when the order would be issued. The hearing focused on a program known as Family Reunification Parole, or FRP, which plaintiffs say has offered a bridge for thousands of people as they built new lives in the United States.
FRP affects relatives from countries including Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti and Honduras, according to the court filings described in the reporting. Many participants were scheduled to lose the protections by Jan. 14 after the Department of Homeland Security terminated the program late last year.
The plaintiffs’ case sought coverage for everyone connected to the program, even though the lawsuit involved five named plaintiffs. Lawyers argued that the parole recipients did not come on a temporary basis in a practical sense, describing the program as a way for people to obtain employment authorization documents, find jobs, and enroll children in school after arriving.
Justin Cox, an attorney with Justice Action Center who argued for the plaintiffs, told the court the government was setting up unfair outcomes by withdrawing protection after people had been told to apply. “The government, having invited people to apply, is now laying traps between those people and getting the green card,” Cox said, characterizing the action as “incredibly inequitable.”
The government argued that the executive branch has authority to end parole programs and that it gave adequate notice by publishing the termination in the federal registry. In court, a lawyer for the government said the arrangement does not create a legal obligation to continue parole after the government decides to end it, stating that “Parole can be terminated at any time,” and adding: “That is what is being done. There is nothing unlawful about that.”
Talwani indicated she was willing to accept that the administration can end FRP in principle, but she questioned whether the government carried out the termination in the way it claimed. She pressed the government on what kind of written notice—such as a letter or email—the administration had sent to program participants, rather than relying solely on publication in the federal registry.
“I understand why plaintiffs feel like they came here and made all these plans and were going to be here for a very long time,” Talwani said. She then told the court she was focused on what Americans expect of a government that says it is following the law, adding, “I am saying to you that, we as Americans, the United States needs to.”
The case is part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to end temporary legal protection for multiple immigration groups. It comes just over a week after another judge ruled that hundreds of people from South Sudan may live and work legally in the United States, according to the reporting.
The hearing also unfolded in the shadow of recent Supreme Court action on temporary immigration protections. The justices cleared the way for the Trump administration in a separate case involving humanitarian parole protections for hundreds of thousands of immigrants, while also lifting a lower-court order that had kept such protections in place for more than 500,000 migrants from four countries: Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
In that Supreme Court case, the decision followed a prior ruling that allowed the government to revoke temporary legal status from about 350,000 Venezuelan migrants. The Supreme Court order did not explain its reasoning in the brief ruling on the emergency docket, and two justices publicly dissented, setting the stage for further lower-court and litigation fights like the one unfolding in Talwani’s courtroom.