Judge will halt Trump administration from ending humanitarian parole for people from four countries

BOSTON (AP) — A federal judge said Thursday that she will prevent the Trump administration from ordering hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans with temporary legal status to leave the country later this month.

The ruling is a significant, although perhaps temporary, setback for the administration as it dismantles Biden-era policies that created new and expanded pathways for people to live in the United States, generally for two years with work authorization.

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani said she would issue a stay on an order for more than 500,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans to leave the country, sparing them until the case advances to the next phase. Their permits were to be canceled April 24.

During a hearing, Talwani repeatedly questioned the government's assertion that it could end humanitarian parole for the four nationalities. She argued that immigrants in the program who are here legally now face an option of “fleeing the country” or staying and “risk losing everything.”

“The nub of the problem here is that the secretary, in cutting short the parole period afforded to these individuals, has to have a reasoned decision,” Talwani said, adding that the explanation for ending the program was “based on an incorrect reading of the law.”

“There was a deal and now that deal has been undercut,” she said later in the hearing.

Last month, the administration revoked legal protections for hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, setting them up for potential deportation in 30 days.

They arrived with financial sponsors, applying online and paying their own airfare for two-year permits to live and work in the U.S. During that time, the beneficiaries needed to find other legal pathways if they wanted to stay longer in the U.S. Parole is a temporary status.

President Donald Trump has been ending legal pathways for immigrants to come to the U.S., implementing campaign promises to deport millions of people who are in the U.S. illegally.

Outside court, immigration advocates, including Guerline Jozef, founder and executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said attacks on this program contradict the Trump administration’s strategy on immigration.

“We hear the narrative of people coming her illegally and the administration wanting to erase illegal immigration,” Jozef said. “But, we clearly see today that is not the case. Even those people who have legal status, are paying their taxes and working are under attack.”

Cesar Baez, an activist of the political opposition in Venezuela, said he feared for his life and left his country to come to the U.S. under the sponsorship of a doctor. He arrived under the humanitarian parole program in December 2022 and, for the last year, has been working as a producer at a media outlet in Washington.

He has applied for a working visa as another way to get legal status and has also requested asylum, but those processes have also been paused under the Trump administration.

For him, the judge’s announcement means hope.

“It is very important for me to have protections and not be removed to Venezuela,” said Baez, 24. “I have no doubt that if I set foot in the country, I would immediately be imprisoned.”

Zamora, a 34-year-old Cuban woman who asked to be identified only by her last name due to fears of being detained and deported, received the judge’s news as relief.

“I was terrified of being left without a work permit,” said Zamora, whose parole and work permit expire in September. “We are people who, in order to come here, have gone through several background checks, and the government take away our status as if we had been criminals and entered illegally.”

Advocates, who called the administration’s action “unprecedented," said it would result in people losing their legal status and ability to work and argued that it violated federal rule-making.

The government's lawyer, Brian Ward, argued in court that ending the program doesn't mean that individuals couldn’t be considered for other immigration programs. He also said the government wouldn't prioritize them for deportation — something Talwani found suspect, given they could be arrested if they happened to go to the hospital or were involved in a car accident.

The end of temporary protections for these immigrants has generated little political blowback among Republicans other than three Cuban-American representatives from Florida who called for preventing the deportation of the Venezuelans affected. One of them, Rep. Maria Salazar of Miami, also joined about 200 congressional Democrats this week in cosponsoring a bill that would enable them to become lawful permanent residents.

This story has been updated to correct the name of one of the plaintiffs. It is Haitian Bridge Alliance, not Haitian Bridge Foundation. Associated Press writer Gisela Salomon contributed to this report from Miami.

Immigration advocates speak Thursday, April 10, 2025, outside federal court in Boston, after a hearing aiming to halt the Trump administration's from stopping a program that allowed hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans to temporarily live in the country. (AP Photos/Michael Casey)

Immigration advocates speak Thursday, April 10, 2025, outside federal court in Boston, after a hearing aiming to halt the Trump administration's from stopping a program that allowed hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans to temporarily live in the country. (AP Photos/Michael Casey)

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks during a news conference to announce the re-launch of the VOICE office, Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement, with families of victims behind her, at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement headquarters, Wednesday, April 9, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

The Department of Homeland Security seal is seen on the podium at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement headquarters, Wednesday, April 9, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

A 9-year-old girl with Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, who was born in Venezuela, but who fluently speaks only English and is in the gifted program at her school, watches TV in her family's apartment, Saturday, April 5, 2025, in Doral, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Six people who all knew each other were inside a vehicle when one, a man with an alleged gang connection, shot each of them in the head before fleeing, according to newly unsealed criminal charges in this week's mass shooting in Minneapolis.

Three victims died at the scene early Tuesday. Another succumbed to his wounds Thursday. One remains hospitalized after being shot in the face but was able to identify the shooter to police, according to the criminal complaint.

And investigators believe a fifth person was killed hours later in retaliation. A suspect in the first shooting was arrested Thursday and has been charged with murder.

Police say the victims were all Native Americans and the shooting was gang-related. The rash of violence has shaken one of the country’s largest urban Indigenous communities.

The first shooting happened on Tuesday just before midnight in a vehicle parked in the diverse residential and commercial neighborhood of Phillips in south Minneapolis. The county medical examiner's office on Friday said the three who died at the scene were Evan Ramon Denny, 27 of St. Paul; Joseph Douglas Goodwin, 17, of Minneapolis; and Merelle Joan White, 20, of Red Lake. Two had been shot multiple times.

A 20-year-old woman was shot in the face and hospitalized in critical condition, the complaint said. She said the shooter was sitting in the back seat when he opened fire on her and everyone else in the vehicle before fleeing on foot.

A 28-year-old man was hospitalized in grave condition but died shortly after the suspect was arrested on Thursday, police said. That victim's name was still being withheld Friday.

About 13 hours later and a few blocks away, a man was killed near an apartment building that happens to house the Minneapolis office of the Red Lake Nation, one of the state's largest tribes. The medical examiner identified him Friday as Tiago Antonio Gilbert, 34, of Minneapolis. He died of multiple gunshot wounds.

The Minneapolis police chief said Thursday it was “entirely probable” this second shooting was revenge for the first. But a police spokesman, Sgt. Garrett Parten, said investigators were still working to determine if there was a link.

Police have released few other details about that homicide.

A makeshift memorial had sprung up by Friday at the site of the first shooting. Red, silver and black balloons were tied to a tree where a plush eagle toy was also attached. At the base were candles, fresh flowers and a bottle of tequila.

The state’s 11 sovereign tribal nations issued a joint statement Thursday, mourning the deaths and urging anyone with information to contact city law enforcement or their own tribal police.

“As native peoples, we have always known grief,” the statement said. “But we have also always experienced the strength that comes afterward. We are here because our ancestors cared for one another. That is how you are even here — because someone before you chose love, protection, and community over despair.”

The complaint against James Duane Ortley, 34, of Minneapolis, alleges that he and members of his family are associated with a gang known as the Native Mob, which operates in the city’s south and other parts of Minnesota.

The gang was the subject of a multiyear federal investigation over a decade ago that resulted in the convictions of 28 people. Its alleged leader at the time was sentenced in 2014 to 43 years in prison.

The U.S. Marshals Service said its local fugitive task force and an FBI SWAT team arrested Ortley on Thursday afternoon. He was charged a day earlier with second-degree murder and being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Ortley has a felony assault conviction on his record from 2021, which the complaint said prohibits him from possessing guns or ammunition. Court records show he completed his probation in 2023. When police interviewed him in 2023 in a separate homicide investigation, the complaint said, he acknowledged that his street name was “Baby James.”

Ortley remained jailed Friday, and court records didn’t list an attorney who could comment on his behalf. His first court appearance is scheduled for Monday. The chief public defender for Hennepin County, Michael Berger, said his office probably won’t learn if it’s representing Ortley until Monday. Messages were left with several potential relatives of Ortley's.

The victim who survived told police the shooter went by the street names “Baby J,” “Little J” and “Little James,” and was a friend of one of the victims, according to the complaint filed in Hennepin County District Court.

Relatives of one victim told police that the victims were all together at a family friend's residence in Minneapolis but left around 9:30 p.m. with plans to pick up “Baby J,” who was known to be a “close family friend” of the victims. The family member identified “Baby J” as the defendant.

Other law enforcement sources told investigators that Ortley was “an associate” of more than one victim, the complaint said.

A surveillance video was consistent with the survivor's account, the complaint said. It shows one person matching Ortley's description exiting the vehicle and fleeing before police arrived.

The complaint gave no details on what might have prompted the shootings.

“This is a bittersweet day,” Police Chief Brian O’Hara said in a statement Friday. “While this arrest represents meaningful progress toward justice, that progress is overshadowed by the heartbreaking loss of another life. Our thoughts remain with the victims’ families, their loved ones, and a community that continues to grieve.”

This story had been updated to correct in the headline that he has been charged in four homicides, instead of charged with four homicides.

Associated Press reporters Mark Vancleave in Minneapolis and John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, contributed.

Items are placed as a memorial at the site of a late Tuesday fatal shooting, on Friday, May 2, 2025 in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Mark Vancleave)

Items are placed as a memorial at the site of a late Tuesday fatal shooting, on Friday, May 2, 2025 in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Mark Vancleave)

A police officer works on the scene as a bystander is shook up by the homicide in front of 2107 Cedar Ave S in Minneapolis, Minn., on Wednesday, April 30, 2025. (Richard Tsong-Taatarii/Star Tribune via AP)

Police work on the scene as a bystander is shook up by the homicide in front of 2107 Cedar Ave S in Minneapolis, Minn., on Wednesday, April 30, 2025. (Richard Tsong-Taatarii/Star Tribune via AP)