On Apr. 10, 2025, U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani stated her intention to block DHS’s Mar. 25, 2025, decision to terminate Humanitarian Parole for individuals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, also known as the CHNV program. The program allows approximately 450,000 people to live and work legally in the United States. It is set to expire on Apr. 24, 2025.

During an Apr. 10, 2025, hearing in a case brought by parolees and their U.S. sponsors to stay termination of the CHNV program, Judge Talwani said, “I am going to issue an order staying the revocation of parole under the Federal Register Notice and of people’s individual parole.” The judge stated that she is unlikely to block the Trump Administration from canceling the program going forward.

Judge Talwani called DHS’s decision to terminate the CHNV program a “Hobson’s choice” where “your parole gets ended, and you either go back to the country you fled … or they stay here in illegal status, at which point they lose all opportunity to adjust their status legally.”

Judge Talwani continued, “I don’t understand the reason … to say ‘No, that’s not enough for people who have been following the law, but instead we want to make them illegal now. We want to make them flee the country.’”

Although the judge is considering certifying the case as a class action, saying “there’s a sufficient basis” to certify a class of immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, she declined to issue an order requiring DHS to notify parolees of the ruling. On that, she stated, “I am trying to stay in my lane and address the problem that’s been created here. I don’t want to throw out the baby with the bathwater because I’m awarding more than I have jurisdiction to do.”

Department of Justice attorney Brian Ward argued that DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has discretion to cancel the CHNV program at any time. Plaintiffs’ attorney Justin Cox contends that DHS’s rationale to ending the CHNV program (to subject former parolees to expedited removal to enable DHS to deport them without a hearing before an immigration judge) is a clear example of legal error and grounds to block termination of the CHNV program.