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What will happen now? It is the question that thousands of Cubans are asking themselves after the announcement this Friday that the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to revoke the temporary legal status granted to more than 500,000 immigrants by the Biden administration.
What does it represent? When the parole is revoked, those affected will lose their work permit and will become undocumented in the country, which makes them subject to deportation, this is something that journalist Mario J. Pentón highlighted as soon as the news was announced.
However, many details remain to be seen that immigration lawyers will need to clarify in the coming hours and days, depending on how events unfold.
One of the uncertainties in the air is whether the applications of those individuals who were in the process of applying for residency under the Cuban Adjustment Act will be frozen.
How many Cubans would be left without legal status due to the revocation of humanitarian parole?
At the end of March, when the revocation of humanitarian parole was initially announced, the number of Cubans who would be left without legal protection in the U.S. was estimated to be about 26,000.
The figure -according to calculations made at that time by journalist Wilfredo Cancio for Café Fuerte- included the citizens of the island who had entered U.S. territory with humanitarian parole after March 2024.
At that time, those Cubans had not yet met the requirement of one year and one day of residency in the U.S., which was necessary to be eligible for the Cuban Adjustment Act (CAA).
The Supreme Court extinguishes the hopes of thousands of beneficiaries of humanitarian parole
The court granted an emergency request made by the Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, which ends Joe Biden's program that allowed more than half a million people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to live and work temporarily in the United States.
The brief order indicated that the liberal justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor dissented.
Jackson wrote that the court had not taken into account "the devastating consequences of allowing the government to hastily disrupt the lives and livelihoods of nearly half a million non-citizens while their legal claims are pending."
The administration challenged a ruling by federal district judge Indira Talwani, based in Massachusetts, who stated that the government could not revoke the status of each individual without an individualized determination.
This decision is on hold while the litigation continues.
In early May, the administration of President Donald Trump had made an emergency appeal to the United States Supreme Court in order to overturn the court ruling that prevented the early termination of the humanitarian parole program.
The program, established during President Joe Biden's administration, allowed individuals from these countries to enter the U.S. by air with financial support and to reside legally for two years with work authorization; however, it was one of the first programs reversed by Trump upon arriving at the White House.
The Trump administration argued that the decision of the Boston district court - which blocked the mass termination of the program - interfered with its executive authority over immigration and foreign policy.
The ruling, issued by Judge Indira Talwani, which gave hope to the beneficiaries of parole, stated that the government could not revoke humanitarian parole in a blanket manner without an individual review of each case, as required by law.
The administration, for its part, argued that maintaining the current program undermined federal efforts to deter irregular border crossings and hindered the expedited enforcement of deportations.
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