By Paul Kiernan
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court's decision allowing the Trump administration to revoke temporary protections for half a million migrants brings the U.S. economy closer to labor shortages in industries and regions that rely on foreign workers.
The impact will take time to unfold, but could be far-reaching. The potential departure of hundreds of thousands of people from the labor force is creating anxiety for employers and adding a fresh dose of uncertainty for an economy already grappling with the administration's tariff policies.
Friday's ruling halts a lower-court injunction that stopped the government from removing temporary parole from migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. It follows a May 19 ruling allowing the Trump administration to strip protections for about 350,000 Venezuelans living in the U.S. under a different program called Temporary Legal Status.
No data exists to show where the migrants affected by Friday's ruling live and work. But Nicaraguans, Venezuelans, Haitians and Cubans are heavily concentrated in South Florida, according to Census Bureau data gathered in 2023. Immigrants from those countries make up an outsize share of employment, relative to their population, in industries such as taxis and ride-shares, hotels, janitorial services, home health services and trucking.
LeadingAge, a group representing nonprofit aging-care providers, said the court ruling means many members will lose workers. "The sudden loss of these employees will have repercussions," the group said.
Lower-court cases over both forms of temporary protection continue, but the Supreme Court rulings enable the Department of Homeland Security to begin revoking workers' employment authorization meanwhile.
Friday's decision also gives the Trump administration a legal window to arrest and deport newly unprotected migrants. Their names and addresses are already known to the government, potentially making them easier to target than migrants with no documentation at all.
There are logistical hurdles. Migrants will have 15 days, following a government notice, to try to preserve work permits by showing they have another legal rationale for remaining in the U.S.
Immigration experts said some migrants losing protected status have other valid claims to remain in the U.S., creating potential for confusion.
"If these people have an ongoing case in immigration court or have been granted asylum, then they are not within the cohort that can be removed, " said Michelle Mittelstadt, a spokeswoman for the Migration Policy Institute.
The Biden administration granted temporary parole to large groups of immigrants from around the world who met certain criteria, allowing them to seek work authorization and other legal protections for two-year terms. President Trump has moved aggressively to remove many of those protections, which cover more than three million people in aggregate.
The administration's efforts are creating significant uncertainty for employers, said Helen Konrad, an immigration lawyer at McCandlish Holton who advises firms with hundreds of thousands of workers.
In recent months, Konrad has heard accounts of staffing agencies being asked not to provide foreign workers out of concern from clients that the workers could lose their immigration status -- a request that cannot be met without violating antidiscrimination statutes.
"Employers are totally getting crushed in the middle of this chaos," Konrad said.
Friday's ruling, she said, likely means some people will self-deport and others will be terminated after their employers learn of their changed status.
Roughly 12 million migrants came to the U.S. from 2021 to 2024, many illegally and many bound for temporary protections such as asylum or parole, according to the Congressional Budget Office. This influx, the largest wave in generations, significantly boosted the labor supply when the economy desperately needed workers.
Write to Paul Kiernan at paul.kiernan@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 31, 2025 10:00 ET (14:00 GMT)
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