Trump administration to re-terminate legal status of migrants who used Biden-era app

An immigrant from Venezuela tries to access the CBP One app in Nogales, Mexico, on Jan. 21.

BOSTON - The Trump administration again plans to terminate the legal status of hundreds of thousands of migrants, after a judge blocked its initial effort to revoke permissions to live in the United States granted under former Democratic U.S. president Joe Biden.

The administration detailed its intention in filings in federal court in Boston, where a judge had ruled in March that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security acted unlawfully when it ended the legal status of more than 900,000 people who were allowed to live in the country after using the Biden-era app CBP One.

That judge, Allison Burroughs, on Friday scheduled a May 6 hearing to consider barring DHS from following through on its plans.

DHS did not respond immediately to requests for comment.

Under Biden, immigrants had been generally granted two-year terms of humanitarian parole after using CBP One, an app that allowed them to schedule an appointment with U.S. Customs and Border Protection to cross the U.S.-Mexico border.

After Republican U.S. President Donald Trump returned to the White House, many non-citizens who ​received parole through ⁠the CBP One process received an email in April 2025 from DHS saying it was terminating their parole and it was “time for you to leave the United States.”

Burroughs, who was appointed by former U.S. Democratic president Barack Obama, last month concluded DHS needed to undo the parole terminations, saying DHS failed to provide a necessary record showing an official determined the purposes of parole had been served.

The U.S. Department of Justice this week told Burroughs that while the administration was complying with her order, it was also issuing new parole termination notices to those migrants pursuant to a Tuesday memo from CBP’s head, Rodney Scott.

The memo is not public, but according to the U.S. Justice Department, Scott provided an explanation for why, in his opinion, “parole is no longer appropriate for those aliens.”

Lawyers at the groups Democracy Forward and Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, representing migrants challenging DHS’ actions, in a Thursday filing urged Burroughs to intervene and prevent what they called a “deliberate attempt to evade compliance with the court’s order.”

Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Nia Williams.