CBP One Parole Revocation | Trump Second Attempt, May 6 Hearing

The CBP One app, launched by the Biden administration in 2023, was designed to manage southern border asylum demand through an appointment-based system. Migrants could use the app to schedule arrival appointments at designated ports of entry, submit to vetting by Customs and Border Protection, and receive temporary parole for up to two years while their asylum cases moved through the immigration court backlog. By the end of the Biden administration, more than 900,000 people had entered the country through this pathway. For the broader context of the Trump administration's immigration enforcement posture, see the ObjectWire Trump hub.

Parole under U.S. immigration law is a discretionary grant by DHS that allows a person to be physically present in the United States without being formally admitted as an immigrant. It is not a path to permanent residency, but it confers legal status, work authorization eligibility, and protection from immediate deportation while the underlying asylum claim is adjudicated. The Trump administration's legal theory is that the Biden-era parole grants were improper uses of the parole authority and that DHS has the power to revoke them. The courts have become the venue where that theory is being tested.

On March 31, 2026, U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs of the District of Massachusetts issued a ruling in Sileiri Doe et al. v. Department of Homeland Security that directly invalidated the Trump administration's first attempt to revoke CBP One parole. The class-action lawsuit was brought by immigration advocacy organizations including Democracy Forward and the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, representing affected individuals and institutional plaintiffs including the Venezuelan Association of Massachusetts.

The ruling applied to the April 2025 mass email campaign in which the administration sent termination notices to parole recipients instructing them to leave the United States immediately. Burroughs found that DHS had exceeded its legal authority in that action. The administration informed the court it would comply with the ruling. What it did not inform the court was that it was simultaneously preparing a new round of terminations structured to address the procedural deficiencies the ruling had identified.

On April 22, 2026, CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott issued an internal memo offering what the Department of Justice described as a legal justification for his determination that "parole is no longer appropriate for those aliens." The memo was not made publicly available. Two days later, on April 24, the DOJ filed with Judge Burroughs' court in Boston, informing the judge that while the administration was complying with her March ruling, it was simultaneously issuing new termination notices to affected migrants based on the Scott memo.

Attorneys from Democracy Forward and the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute filed a response in the hours after the DOJ's April 24 submission, urging Judge Burroughs to block the new terminations. Their argument is not primarily that the Scott memo is legally deficient, though they contest that as well. The core argument is that the new termination effort constitutes a deliberate attempt to circumvent the court's order, a characterization that, if accepted by Burroughs, would implicate not just the validity of the terminations but the administration's compliance posture before the court.

The circumvention argument carries specific legal weight in federal court. A finding that an agency deliberately structured a new action to evade a court order, rather than genuinely remedying the procedural deficiency the order identified, can support contempt proceedings, heightened injunctive relief, and adverse inference findings in subsequent litigation. The administration has acknowledged the court's March ruling and has not publicly argued that the ruling was wrong, only that the new notices satisfy its requirements. That framing gives plaintiffs' attorneys a narrow but viable path: demonstrate that a single commissioner-level memo covering all 900,000 cases simultaneously cannot constitute the individualized review the March ruling demanded. For the administration's broader pattern of immigration policy actions and legal responses, see ObjectWire's coverage of the Venezuela sanctions modification and the Trump administration hub.

The 900,000 figure that anchors this litigation has already contracted in ways that complicate both the legal fight and any enforcement effort. DHS has not provided a current count of how many of the original CBP One parolees remain in the country with active parole status. Three distinct populations have effectively exited the class since the April 2025 mass email.

DHS has not commented publicly on the total current size of the affected population. The May 6 hearing before Judge Burroughs will determine whether the new termination notices are paused pending further litigation. If Burroughs issues a preliminary injunction, the legal status of everyone remaining in the class is preserved until the court resolves the merits of whether the Scott memo satisfies the individualized review standard her March ruling required. If she declines to issue an injunction, the second round of terminations proceeds while the litigation continues, creating the same enforcement-while-litigating dynamic that produced the first legal challenge. For coverage of this story as it develops, see the ObjectWire Politics hub.