The ruling is a significant, although perhaps temporary, setback for the administration as it dismantles Biden-era policies that created new and expanded pathways for people to live in the United States, generally for two years with work authorization.

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani said she would issue a stay on an order for more than 500,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans to leave the country, sparing them until the case advances to the next phase. Their permits were to be canceled April 24.

During a hearing, Talwani repeatedly questioned the government’s assertion that it could end humanitarian parole for the four nationalities. She argued that immigrants in the program who are here legally now face an option of “fleeing the country” or staying and “risk losing everything.”

“The nub of the problem here is that the secretary, in cutting short the parole period afforded to these individuals, has to have a reasoned decision,” Talwani said, adding that the explanation for ending the program was “based on an incorrect reading of the law.”

“There was a deal and now that deal has been undercut,” she said later in the hearing.

Last month, the administration revoked legal protections for hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, setting them up for potential deportation in 30 days.

They arrived with financial sponsors, applying online and paying their own airfare for two-year permits to live and work in the U.S. During that time, the beneficiaries needed to find other legal pathways if they wanted to stay longer in the U.S. Parole is a temporary status.

President Donald Trump has been ending legal pathways for immigrants to come to the U.S., implementing campaign promises to deport millions of people who are in the U.S. illegally.

Outside court, immigration advocates, including Guerline Jozef, founder and executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said attacks on this program contradict the Trump administration’s strategy on immigration.

“We hear the narrative of people coming her illegally and the administration wanting to erase illegal immigration,” Jozef said. “But, we clearly see today that is not the case. Even those people who have legal status, are paying their taxes and working are under attack.”

Cesar Baez, an activist of the political opposition in Venezuela, said he feared for his life and left his country to come to the U.S. under the sponsorship of a doctor. He arrived under the humanitarian parole program in December 2022 and, for the last year, has been working as a producer at a media outlet in Washington.

He has applied for a working visa as another way to get legal status and has also requested asylum, but those processes have also been paused under the Trump administration.

For him, the judge’s announcement means hope.

“It is very important for me to have protections and not be removed to Venezuela,” said Baez, 24. “I have no doubt that if I set foot in the country, I would immediately be imprisoned.”

Zamora, a 34-year-old Cuban woman who asked to be identified only by her last name due to fears of being detained and deported, received the judge’s news as relief.

“I was terrified of being left without a work permit,” said Zamora, whose parole and work permit expire in September. “We are people who, in order to come here, have gone through several background checks, and the government take away our status as if we had been criminals and entered illegally.”

Advocates, who called the administration’s action “unprecedented,” said it would result in people losing their legal status and ability to work and argued that it violated federal rule-making.

The government’s lawyer, Brian Ward, argued in court that ending the program doesn’t mean that individuals couldn’t be considered for other immigration programs. He also said the government wouldn’t prioritize them for deportation — something Talwani found suspect, given they could be arrested if they happened to go to the hospital or were involved in a car accident.

The end of temporary protections for these immigrants has generated little political blowback among Republicans other than three Cuban-American representatives from Florida who called for preventing the deportation of the Venezuelans affected. One of them, Rep. Maria Salazar of Miami, also joined about 200 congressional Democrats this week in cosponsoring a bill that would enable them to become lawful permanent residents.