President Donald Trump's administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday, 8 May, to allow it to end humanitarian parole for hundreds of thousands of immigrants from four countries.

The emergency appeal asks the justices to halt a lower-court order keeping in place legal protections for more than 500,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

The Republican administration argues that the decision wrongly intrudes on the authority of its department of homeland security.

The order from US district judge Indira Talwani blocked the administration from putting an early end to the immigrants' temporary legal status.

The case comes as the Trump administration seeks to crack down on immigration and dismantle Biden-era policies that created new and expanded pathways for people to live in the United States, generally for two years with work authorisation.