Federal judge rules DHS unlawfully terminated parole for thousands who used CBP One app

A federal judge in Boston ruled Trump administration officials violated federal law by terminating the immigration status of more than 900,000 people allowed into the U.S. through CBP One—a Biden-era program giving people temporary parole to come into the U.S. while they sought asylum.

In a 25-page ruling on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs said when Trump officials terminated “the impacted non-citizens parole without observing the process mandated by statute and by their own regulations they took action that was ‘not in accordance with law.'”

During the Biden administration, migrants could request an appointment at U.S. border crossings and would go through background and security checks before they were allowed to start the first steps to seek asylum. Officials launched the program in an effort to “incentivize noncitizens to use lawful, safe, humane, and orderly pathways and processes.”

“DHS encourages migrants to use lawful processes, rather than taking the dangerous journey to cross unlawfully between the ports of entry, which also carries significant consequences under the United States immigration laws,” federal officials said in December 2024, noting the appointments helped U.S. Customs and Border Protection process migrants in a “more efficient and orderly manner while cutting out unscrupulous smugglers who endanger and profit from vulnerable migrants.”

The agency limited appointments to just eight border crossings, including Nogales—which was the only Arizona-Mexico border crossing accepting appointments—and limited appointments to around 1,250 people per day across the entire U.S.-Mexico border.

From January 2023 through December 2024, more than 936,500 people—including Venezuelan, Cuban, and Mexican migrants—scheduled appointments through CBP One rather than risking their lives in the hands of smugglers, CBP said during the last day’s of the Biden administration.

Weeks later, the Trump administration officials slammed the door on CBP appointments, cancelling every appointment on Jan. 20. This left around 200,000 to 270,000 asylum seekers stranded in Mexico, according to an estimate by the Strauss Center for International Security and Law. 

In Arizona, some migrants were already inside the Nogales border crossing when their appointments were cancelled, and federal officials decided to hold them and send them to a detention center in Eloy, Ariz. A Cuban father and his son lost their chance just hours before their appointment, a bitter change after they spent nearly six months waiting for their chance to seek asylum.

Parole is temporary status, protecting immigrants from deportation under the Immigration and Nationality Act, and does not grant a pathway to permanent status or citizenship.Under current immigration law, the DHS secretary can “parole” people into the U.S. and in previous administrations, humanitarian parole was widely used to protect people. 

In the late 1970s, parole was granted to around 5,000 Romanian and Soviet Jews as well as thousands of Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodians. More recently, large-scale parole was granted to around 5,900 Kurds from Iraq in 1996, and to 1,100 Haitian orphans following the earthquake during the Obama administration.

However, former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claimed the Biden administration “exploited” the application to allow people to “illegally enter” the U.S.—reinforcing a long-running complaint from Republicans, who said the previous president’s officials were violating the law by extending humanitarian parole to hundreds of thousands of people, rather than on a case-by-case basis. 

In April 2025, Trump administration officials abruptly ended parole for anyone who entered through CBP One, cancelling work authorizations and telling people via email they needed to leave the U.S. immediately.

Through 2025, an estimated 1.6 million people lost their legal status as Trump officials sought to ending Temporary Protected Status for thousands, and revoking humanitarian protections for thousands more initially granted under the Biden administration.

Following the cancellations, Democracy Forward and the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of three women from Venezuela, Cuba and Haiti who made appointments using CBP One and were granted parole after inspection by immigration officials and the Venezuelan Association of Massachusetts.

The group argued DHS and CBP officials violated the law because they did not make case-by-case determinations, but rather “terminated en masse the lawful parole status of hundreds of thousands of noncitizens seeking asylum or other immigration relief and who secured appointments for inspection at the border through the U.S. government’s ‘CBP One’ app.” DHS officials “provided no explanation at all for the mass parole terminations, abandoning their duty under the Administrative Procedure Act to make reasonable decisions and provide adequate explanations for those decisions.”

“In the mass parole termination emails” the group wrote, officials “did not provide any basis for the termination, and did not consider any individual recipient’s reliance interests in their lawful status to remain in the United States,” attorneys wrote. These “callous and unlawful actions indiscriminately stripped” people of their “legal right to live and work in the United States.”

“They went from living in the United States legally to being deemed ‘illegal aliens’ overnight, substantially increasing their risk of immediate detention and removal to countries from which they fled (or even to third countries to which they have no ties).”

Burroughs ruled the Trump administration’s blanket revocation of parole via a mass email was unlawful, and she vacated the terminations and ordered federal officials to restore parole status for anyone in the class.

“The ruling rejects the administration’s attempt to strip lawful status through an unexplained en masse decision,” said Democracy Forward in a news release. “The court’s decision restores stability for families who relied on their lawful parole to work, secure housing, access health care, and pursue asylum or other legal relief.”

Burroughs’s ruling is “a clear rejection of an administration that has tried to erase lawful status for hundreds of thousands of people with the click of a button,” said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward.

“Our clients followed the law: they waited, registered, were inspected, and were granted parole under the law. The Trump-Vance administration’s effort to tear that status away overnight was unlawful and cruel — and today, the court rejected that harmful and destabilizing policy. Democracy Forward will continue to be alongside communities targeted by abuse of power and fight to ensure the rule of law protects everyone in America.”

“For many Venezuelan families, this decision brings long-awaited relief after months of fear and uncertainty,” said Carlina Velásquez, president of the Venezuelan Association of Massachusetts. “These are individuals who followed every step required of them, trusted the system, and built their lives here only to be told they had to leave everything behind.” Velásquez said the ruling “restores not only their stability, but also their dignity and hope. It is a powerful reminder that behind every policy are real families who deserve fairness, humanity, and respect.”