Washington DC - The Supreme Court ruled Friday for a second time that the Trump administration can strip 350,000 Venezuelan immigrants of a special status protecting them from deportation.

The conservative-majority court in May had granted an emergency request filed by the administration to take away the so-called Temporary Protected Status from the Venezuelan migrants.

The US high court's three liberal justices dissented from the new ruling.

It negates a decision in September from California-based US District Judge Edward Chen against the administration's drive to strip Venezuelans of TPS.

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TPS protects its holders from deportation and allows them to work. It is granted to people deemed to be in danger if they return to their home countries, because of war, natural disaster, or other extraordinary circumstances.

In a brief order the Supreme Court said that, barring a new order from it or another lower court, Chen's order against the government is frozen.

"Although the posture of the case has changed, the parties' legal arguments and relative harms generally have not. The same result that we reached in May is appropriate here," the court order said.

One of the three liberal justices, Ketanji Brown Jackson, criticized her conservative colleagues.

She said that once again they gave more importance to the urgency cited by the Trump administration than to the people protected by TPS or the reasoning of lower courts in this case.

"We once again use our equitable power (but not our opinion-writing capacity) to allow this Administration to disrupt as many lives as possible, as quickly as possible," she wrote.

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President Donald Trump is carrying out a sweeping assault on immigrant communities as he seeks to expel millions of people in the country.

His deportation drive has been held up or at least slowed by the courts, including the Supreme Court, on the argument that people targeted for expulsion have the right to challenge this in court.

TPS was granted to Venezuelans under then President Joe Biden.

TPS holders also denounced the Supreme Court's ruling and vowed to continue fighting.

"It is heartbreaking that the justices rubber-stamped this administration’s unlawful cancellation of TPS. This decision will upend the lives of hundreds of thousands of law-abiding, hard-working TPS holders like myself," plaintiff Cecilia Gonzalez said in a statement.

"Today, I am grieving for the families who will be separated, for the parents who will lie awake worrying about providing for their children, for the people who will go without medical treatment, who will lose their jobs, their stability, everything they have worked for. But tomorrow, we will come together and continue to push for our rights, our dignity, and our freedom.”

Jose Palma, coordinator of the National TPS Alliance, said, "Today’s Supreme Court decision raises doubts about whether the nation’s highest court is deciding based on the law or merely rubber stamping President Trump’s actions. Venezuelan TPS holders followed all the rules, and still find themselves stripped overnight of their lawful status."

"We cannot – and will not – remain silent in the face of such injustice. And we invite everyone to join us on a Week of Action to Protect TPS Families from October 6 to 10. Because one thing is very clear: only the people will save the people," he added.