Federal court filings in Boston indicate the administration intends to move forward with efforts to end the legal status of hundreds of thousands of migrants who were granted humanitarian parole after using the CBP One mobile application.
The filings follow a March ruling by U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs, who found that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security acted unlawfully when it revoked the parole status of more than 900,000 people who had been allowed to remain in the country after the CBP One process. In response to the renewed filings, Judge Burroughs scheduled a hearing on May 6 to consider whether DHS should be barred from carrying out its stated plans.
Under the prior administration of President Joe Biden, individuals who used the CBP One app to schedule appointments with U.S. Customs and Border Protection were generally granted two-year terms of humanitarian parole. That policy allowed many non-citizens to enter and live in the United States for the allotted parole period.
After President Donald Trump returned to the White House, DHS sent emails in April 2025 to many of those who had received parole through CBP One, informing them that their parole was being terminated and that it was "time for you to leave the United States." Judge Burroughs later determined that DHS had not produced a record showing that an official had made the necessary determination that the purposes of parole had been satisfied, and therefore ordered DHS to undo the terminations.
Despite the court order, the Justice Department told Judge Burroughs this week that the administration was both complying with her directive and issuing new parole termination notices. According to the Justice Department, the new notices were issued pursuant to a memo from Rodney Scott, the head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The memo itself has not been made public, but DOJ said Scott supplied an explanation concluding that "parole is no longer appropriate for those aliens."
Advocacy groups representing migrants who challenged DHS' actions argued in filings that the government's approach amounts to a deliberate attempt to avoid complying with the court's order. Lawyers from Democracy Forward and the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute urged the judge to intervene to block what they described as a maneuver to evade the court ruling.
The filings and the upcoming hearing frame a legal contest over administrative action and the procedural record required when terminating humanitarian parole. The court will weigh whether the new notices and the cited CBP memorandum meet the standards the judge identified in her earlier ruling, and whether DHS may proceed with the terminations while the matter remains before the court.
Background
The contested policy centers on parole granted following use of the CBP One app, which had been used to schedule crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border and resulted in two-year humanitarian parole in many cases. The sequence of actions stretching from the initial terminations, the judge's finding of unlawfulness, and now the administration's stated intent to issue new termination notices has prompted renewed litigation and the May 6 hearing.
The course of these proceedings will determine whether affected migrants retain the parole status they were originally granted, and whether DHS must follow specific administrative procedures to effectuate any termination.