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 programmes that were created or modernised 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.

Washington preparing to deport Iranians despite unrest, killings, says NGO

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 Dec 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.” The termination was originally set to take effect January 14, but Talwani issued a temporary restraining order blocking it for 14 days while she considered whether to issue Saturday’s longer-term injunction.

Talwani said the department, led by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, had provided no support for its fraud concerns or considered whether individuals could feasibly return to their home countries, where many had sold homes or left jobs.

“The Secretary could not provide a reasoned explanation of the agency’s change in policy without acknowledging these interests,” wrote Talwani, who was appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama.

“Accordingly, failure to do so was arbitrary and capricious.” The department did not respond to a request for comment. The ruling came in a class action lawsuit pursued by immigrant rights advocates challenging the administration’s broader rollback of temporary parole granted to hundreds of thousands of migrants.

Talwani earlier in that case blocked the administration from ending grants of parole to about 430,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, but the Supreme Court lifted her order, which an appeals court later overturned.

Deportation of Iranians

The Trump administration plans to repatriate Iranian migrants from the United States despite their home country still reeling from massive protests during which thousands were killed, according to an Iranian-American NGO.

The deportation flights would be the first to Iran since the beginning of the mass uprisings in the country, which peaked in early January before being violently repressed.

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to launch military strikes on Iran in response to the crackdown, but has since appeared to walk back those threats after he said Tehran suspended planned executions.

The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) said it had learned that Trump’s administration was planning to restart deportation flights to Iran, after prior removals in September and December.

“The same administration that promised Iranians that ‘help is on the way’ amid a deadly crackdown is now forcibly sending Iranians back into danger,” said NIAC president Jamal Abdi.

Abolfazl Mehrabadi, a diplomat representing Tehran’s interests in the United States, told Iran’s official IRNA news agency on Saturday that about 40 Iranians were to be deported. They will depart on Sunday from an airport in Phoenix, Arizona, he said.

Among them are two gay men who face execution in Iran, where homosexuality is punishable by death, according to a statement from the American Immigration Council, an immigrant advocacy organisation representing them.

The two men are currently being held in an immigration detention center in Arizona, and legal proceedings to prevent their deportation are still ongoing, according to the organisation.

Published in Dawn, January 26th, 2026