BOSTON (Reuters) – A federal appeals court rejected on Monday a request by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration to allow it to revoke the temporary legal status of hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans living in the United States.

The Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to put on hold a judge’s order halting the Department of Homeland Security’s move to cut short a two-year parole granted to the migrants under Trump’s Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden.

The department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The administration’s action marked an expansion of the Republican president’s hardline crackdown on immigration and push to ramp up deportations, including of noncitizens previously granted a legal right to live and work in the United States.

The ruling came in a lawsuit by immigrant rights advocates challenging an agency decision to pause various Biden-era parole programs that have allowed Ukrainian, Afghan, Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan migrants to enter the country.

While the case was pending, the Homeland Security Department on March 25 announced in a Federal Register notice that it had decided to terminate the two-year parole granted to about 400,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelan migrants.

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama, on April 25 halted the agency’s action, which she said revoked previously granted parole and work authorizations for migrants on a categorical basis and without a necessary case-by-case review.

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(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Franklin Paul and Leslie Adler)