Judge orders Trump administration to restore legal status of migrants allowed into U.S. through Biden-era phone app

A federal judge in Boston on Tuesday directed the Trump administration to restore the legal status of migrants allowed into the U.S. under a now-defunct Biden administration program for asylum-seekers who arrived at the southern border.

U.S. District Court Judge Allison Burroughs voided the Trump administration’s decision to end the immigration parole status of migrants who entered the country under the Biden-era CBP Home policy, finding that the move violated procedures outlined in U.S. law. That program relied on a phone app that the second Trump administration has since repurposed and renamed as CBP Home to facilitate self-deportations of those in the U.S. illegally.

More than 900,000 migrants from countries across the globe were allowed into the U.S. at official ports of entry along the southern border under the CBP One system. It’s unclear how many will benefit from the ruling since some may have been deported already or gained another lawful status.

The Justice Department is likely to appeal the ruling.

At the time, the Biden administration argued the CBP One program reduced illegal immigration by giving would-be border crossers the chance to enter the U.S. with the government’s permission.

But Trump administration officials have argued that the Biden administration did not have authority to create such a program and that it violated U.S. immigration law by allowing hundreds of thousands of migrants to enter the country outside of the traditional legal immigration system.  

In April 2025, the Department of Homeland Security announced it was terminating the parole status of those processed under the CBP One program, urging them to self-deport or face the prospect of being found, arrested and forcibly deported.

In a statement Tuesday, DHS said it had the power to revoke the parole status of those allowed in by the Biden administration. 

“We disagree with this blatant judicial activism undermining the President’s Article II authority to determine who remains in this country,” DHS said. “The Biden Administration abused the parole authority under the disastrous CBP One program to allow millions of illegal aliens into the U.S. which further fueled the worst border crisis in U.S. history.”

Skye Perryman, President and CEO of Democracy Forward, a group that challenged the parole terminations in federal court, said Tuesday’s order rejected “a harmful and destabilizing policy.”

“Today’s ruling is a clear rejection of an administration that has tried to erase lawful status for hundreds of thousands of people with the click of a button,” Perryman said. “Our clients followed the law: they waited, registered, were inspected, and were granted parole under the law.”