How the Supreme Court Made Legal Immigrants Vulnerable to Deportation

The government knows their names.

Their fingerprints have been scanned into government computers. The Department of Homeland Security knows where most of them live, because the immigrants in question — more than 500,000 of them — reside in the United States legally.

But two new Supreme Court decisions have left them open to deportation, an abrupt turn for a population that has been able to remain in the country by using legal pathways for people facing war and political turmoil at home.

“Thousands of people — especially Haitians, Cubans and Venezuelans — instantly shift from ‘lawfully present’ to ‘deportable,’” said Jason Houser, a former official with Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the Biden administration.

Now, with their protections revoked while legal challenges move through lower courts, many immigrants have found themselves in a vulnerable position. Because so many of them have shared detailed information with the government, including addresses, biometrics and the names of their sponsors, they could be easy to track down at a moment when the Trump administration is looking for ways to deport people quickly.

“Ending the C.H.N.V. parole programs, as well as the paroles of those who exploited it, will be a necessary return to common-sense policies, a return to public safety, and a return to America First,” said Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Homeland Security Department. She was using an abbreviation for Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, the countries in the humanitarian parole program targeted by the Trump administration.

Whether and how aggressively the administration might move to begin rounding up people whose legal protections have been revoked remains unclear, though officials signaled several months ago that they feel they have the authority to do so.