By Nate Raymond
BOSTON, March 31 (Reuters) – A federal judge on Tuesday ordered President Donald Trump’s administration to reverse termination of the legal status of thousands of migrants who had been allowed to temporarily live in the United States by using an appointment app utilized by Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration.
U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs in Boston ruled that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security acted unlawfully in April 2025, when it sent mass emails notifying many of the more than 900,000 people who had entered the country using the CBP One app that it was “time for you to leave the United States.”
DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The ruling came in a class-action lawsuit filed in August by three people from Venezuela, Cuba and Haiti and the advocacy group Venezuelan Association of Massachusetts, who argued the Trump administration’s action constituted an abrupt, unlawful move to strip immigrants of their parole status and work authorization.
Such immigrants had been generally granted two-year terms of humanitarian parole after using a Biden-era app called CBP One to schedule an appointment to cross the U.S.-Mexico border. DHS under Biden had begun requiring many asylum seekers to use that app in an effort to alleviate chaos at the border.
Trump, shortly after returning to the White House in January 2025, moved to shut down use of the app, as the Republican president’s administration began to institute his hardline immigration and mass deportation agenda.
In April 2025, many non-citizens who received parole through the CBP One process got an email from DHS saying it was exercising its discretion to terminate their parole.
“Do not attempt to remain in the United States—the federal government will find you,” the email said. “Please depart the United States immediately.”
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston, Editing by Franklin Paul and Bill Berkrot)
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