A string of Supreme Court decisions this week cemented the broad discretionary authority of President Trump on immigration matters and positioned the executive agencies to move forward with sweeping policies that could remove hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals from the U.S. interior.

On Thursday, the justices issued opinions on both asylum claims and temporary protected status (TPS), two of the key legal mechanisms for keeping foreigners in the country. TPS is a legal status intended for citizens of a nation facing an immediate hardship, such as a war or natural disaster. About 1.3 million people in the United States have been granted such status, including 600,000 from Venezuela and 330,000 from Haiti.

Asylum is a longer-term status for those specifically facing some form of persecution or threat in their home country. Merely applying for asylum status can shield someone from deportation, and as many as 2.6 million people currently enjoy some form of deportation protection through that process, according to Pew Research.

The Trump administration has sought to deport as many as 22 million illegal aliens, a figure that includes the roughly 10 million people admitted under previous President Joe Biden through various discretionary programs, parole and TPS. As of January, the Department of Homeland Security had reported roughly 700,000 physical deportations and roughly 2.2 million voluntary self-deportations. 

A DHS spokesperson told Just the News, 'In President Trump’s first year back in office, more than 3 million illegal aliens have left the U.S. because of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration including an estimated 2.2 million self-deportations. As of June 24, we have now deported over 948,000 illegal aliens and arrested over 981,000 illegal aliens.”

Collectively, TPS holders and asylum applications represent just under 4 million foreigners in the country, a substantial portion of the larger total.

The Supreme Court’s asylum ruling in Mullin v. Al Otro Lado substantially limited the ability of people to make new asylum applications, finding that someone who had not crossed the border was not entitled to apply for asylum under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). Specifically, the justices found that aliens do not “arrive in the United States” if they failed to cross the border.

The TPS ruling in Mullin v. Doe, meanwhile, asserted the authority of the president to revoke TPS without the decision being subjected to judicial scrutiny. Notably, the decision found that the statute creating TPS limited judicial review of an executive decision to revoke the status.

Both rulings represented significant victories in the administration’s efforts to remove millions of foreign nationals from the U.S. 

In the short-term, however, the asylum ruling limits only new applicants and does not affect the 2.6 million current applicants with deportation protections. The TPS ruling, moreover, affects the cancellation of the status for the 330,000 Haitians and 3,000 Syrians. It does pave the way for the revocation of TPS for other groups, however.

The lion’s share of TPS holders are the 600,000 Venezuelans, though the Supreme Court has already permitted the administration to end that status, with expiration dates set for September and October, depending on the designation date.

The removal of those individuals in the near future seems likely given the Venezuelan government’s rapprochement with Washington since the extraction of President Nicolás Maduro by U.S. special forces.

The twin earthquakes that rocked Venezuela this week, moreover, have prompted Trump to offer federal support to the country, potentially fostering better relationships with governing officials there and setting up a potential repatriation of thousands in the foreseeable future.

Both Thursday rulings come on the heels of other immigration wins at the Supreme Court and lower courts. Last year, for instance, the justices limited the scope of several nationwide injunctions that had barred the implementation of key immigration policies.

In March, the Supreme Court found that immigration courts must defer to executive agencies on key findings of fact in certain immigration cases, empowering the Trump administration to make key procedural determinations in the process.

Ben Whedon is the Chief Political Correspondent for Just the News. Follow him on X.