A federal judge in California on Wednesday voided the Trump administration’s move to terminate the Temporary Protected Status of roughly 60,000 immigrants from Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua, calling it a “pre-ordained decision.”
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced the termination of the TPS programs for Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua in June and July, saying the three countries had recovered from the environmental disasters that prompted the U.S. government to grant their nationals temporary legal refuge.
Created by Congress in 1990, the TPS policy allows the U.S. government to give certain foreigners deportation protections and work permits, temporarily, if their native countries are facing armed conflict, an environmental disaster or another emergency that makes their return unsafe.
In late July, U.S. District Court Judge Trina Thompson delayed the termination of the TPS programs for Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua, issuing a preliminary finding that the Trump administration failed to consider lingering problems in three nations and that the decision to terminate the policies was motivated by racial animus, or racial hostility. That ruling was paused in August by an appeals court, allowing the Trump administration to end the programs.
But Thompson issued a summary judgment on Wednesday, finding that the effort to revoke the legal status of tens of thousands of Hondurans, Nepalis and Nicaraguans was unlawful. She said Noem’s move “was preordained and pretextual rather than based on an objective review of the country conditions as required by the TPS statute and the (Administrative Procedures Act).”
“The record specifically reflects that, before taking office, the Secretary made a pre-ordained decision to end TPS and influenced the conditions review process to facilitate TPS terminations for Honduras, Nicaragua, and Nepal,” Thompson wrote in her order.
The TPS designations for Honduras and Nicaragua were first created in the late 1990s, after the devastation caused by Hurricane Mitch, which killed thousands in Central America. Many of those previously enrolled in those programs arrived in the U.S. more than two decades ago. The TPS policy for Nepal was established in 2015, following a deadly earthquake in the small Asian nation.
The Trump administration has mounted an aggressive effort to dismantle most TPS programs, arguing the policy attracts illegal immigration and that it has been abused by Democratic administrations and extended for far too long. It has also moved to terminate TPS protections for hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Haiti, Myanmar, Sudan, Syria and Venezuela.
In a statement, Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin called the judge’s ruling “another lawless and activist order from the federal judiciary who continues to usurp the President’s constitutional authority.”
“Under the previous administration Temporary Protected Status was abused to allow violent terrorists, criminals, and national security threats into our nation,” McLaughlin said. “TPS was never designed to be permanent, yet previous administrations have used it as a de facto amnesty program for decades. Given the improved situation in each of these countries, now is the right time to conclude what was always intended to be a temporary designation.”
Ahilan Arulanantham, co-director of the UCLA Center for Immigration Law and Policy, said Wednesday’s ruling should allow TPS holders from Honduras, Nicaragua and Nepal to work in the U.S. legally and prevent federal immigration officials from detaining and deporting them.
“The court’s decision today restores TPS protections for thousands of long-term law-abiding TPS-holding residents from Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua,” Arulanantham said.
The Trump administration announced Wednesday a renewed effort to terminate the Temporary Protected Status of more than 350,000 Haitian immigrants, saying they will be eligible for deportation in early February unless they have other legal means to remain in the U.S.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem made the decision after the Trump administration’s initial attempts to end the TPS protections of hundreds of thousands of Haitians earlier this year were stalled in federal court.
Noem acknowledged the humanitarian and political problems faced by crisis-stricken Haiti — including what she called “widespread gang violence” — but said extending the TPS policy would be at odds with U.S. interests.
“Based on the Department’s review, the Secretary has determined that while the current situation in Haiti is concerning, the United States must prioritize its national interests and permitting Haitian nationals to remain temporarily in the United States is contrary to the U.S. national interest,” the official DHS termination notice said.
The TPS program for Haiti is now set to expire on Feb. 3, and the termination is expected to affect 352,959 beneficiaries, DHS said in its notice. Trump administration officials have urged TPS holders whose status is set to lapse to self-deport or face the prospect of being detained and forcibly removed from the U.S.
TPS allows beneficiaries to work and live in the U.S. without fear of deportation for time periods outlined by DHS. The humanitarian program was created by Congress in 1990 to allow administrations to grant a temporary safe haven to foreigners from countries facing an armed conflict, an environmental disaster or other emergencies.
The Biden administration vastly expanded the TPS policy, offering the protections to hundreds of thousands of new arrivals from Afghanistan, Haiti, Ukraine, Venezuela and other countries. Some of those who benefit from TPS entered the U.S. illegally, most commonly along the southern border, while others arrived legally on temporary visas or programs.
As part of its government-wide immigration crackdown, the second Trump administration has sought to dismantle most TPS programs, revoking or moving to revoke legal protections for hundreds of thousands of Afghans, Burmese, Cameroonians, Haitians, Hondurans, Nepalis, Nicaraguans, Syrians, Sudanese and Venezuelans.
The Trump administration has argued the TPS policy has been abused by Democratic administrations, exploited by bad actors and extended for too long, even though it is designed to be temporary in nature. In some cases, it has argued conditions in countries with TPS have improved and in other cases, it has said that extending the program would not further U.S. interests, even if conditions in the affected nations remain dire.
In its notice Wednesday, DHS argued the TPS policy for Haiti was a magnet for illegal immigration, and that continuing the program posed national security and public safety risks. It cited concerns about its ability to properly vet Haitian migrants, and cases of some TPS holders from Haiti being implicated in immigration fraud or national security investigations.
DFL Minnesota lawmakers and other community advocates rallied in the State Capitol rotunda on Monday to condemn President Trump’s pledge to end deportation protections for some Somali immigrants.
In a social media post on Friday, Mr. Trump said he would end “effective immediately” the temporary legal status for Somalia, a designation the country has had since 1991 and has been renewed in the years following. The federal program allows people to get temporary relief from removal and obtain a work authorization because the U.S. government determines certain countries are unstable due to civil unrest, violence or natural disasters.
More than 700 migrants from Somalia have Temporary Protected Status, according to the Congressional Research Service. In 2023, the year for which the most recent data is available, the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota estimated 430 Somalis in the state were afforded those protections.
“This is not about crime. It’s not about safety. This is about purging people like me from this country,” said State Sen. Zaynab Mohamed, DFL-Minneapolis, at the rally Monday.
Minnesota has the largest Somali population in the U.S. with roughly 80,000 Somali Minnesotans living in the state, according to Minnesota Compass, a project of Wilder Research.
Mr. Trump, in his social media post announcing the move over the weekend, said Minnesota has become a “hub of fraudulent money laundering” and claimed “Somali gangs are terrorizing the people of that great state and billions of dollars are missing.”
Dozens have been convicted or pleaded guilty in those cases. Separately, there are other allegations of fraud plaguing other state programs like housing and autism treatment services.
“We do not blame the lawlessness of an individual on a whole community,” U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Democrat who represents Minnesota’s Fifth Congressional District, told the crowd at the rally. “Because if you believe in law and order, you understand that if a person commits a crime, they face justice and that you don’t put that crime on a whole community.”
Omar told reporters after the rally concluded that she did not believe anyone facing criminal charges for fraud has Temporary Protected Status in Minnesota.
“You have right now 57 people who have been convicted. So if your assumption is that we should all be collectively held responsible for the fact that 57 people have committed a crime and are being held accountable and are going to jail, then that’s your prerogative, but we don’t feel the weight of what those individuals have done, ” Omar said, responding to a question about if those accused of crimes create a perception problem for the Somali community in Minnesota.
Attorney General Keith Ellison said his office is exploring its options in response to the announcement by Mr. Trump, noting there are other instances in which his administration attempted to revoke TPS designations for other countries. On Monday, the Trump administration announced it would end the protections for 4,000 immigrants from Myanmar.
“Because this isn’t the first time Trump has tried a tactic like this, there are some good examples we can follow. Multiple efforts to cancel TPS holders and the first Trump term were successfully litigated,” Ellison said.
In a statement, GOP House Speaker Lisa Demuth, who is also running for governor, praised President Trump for acknowledging the fraud happening in Minnesota.
“The unfortunate reality is that far too many individuals who were welcomed into this country have abused the trust and support that was extended to them, and Minnesota taxpayers have suffered billions of dollars in consequences as a result,” she said. “Any individual involved in these criminal activities should be charged, held accountable, and swiftly deported if they are not lawfully present in the United States.”
Ana Pottratz Acosta, visiting professor at the Immigration and Human Rights Clinic at the University of Minnesota Law School, said in an email that the president does not have the authority to end TPS protections; instead, it’s the job of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem — and that any decision is supposed to be a national one, not on a state-by-state basis.
The law requires, Acosta said, that the DHS secretary base the decision on conditions in the country and consult with other agencies like the State Department.
“There has to be some specific justification showing conditions have improved enough to justify ending TPS for nationals of that country,” she told WCCO News.
Noem on Sunday during an unrelated visit to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport said DHS is looking into the program.
“TPS is a program that was always meant to be temporary. It’s a program that was put in place, I believe, for Somalia, over 30 years ago and will need to be evaluated to make sure that it comes and is always implemented in the process for which it was intended,” she said.
President Trump on Friday said he is ending deportation protections for Somali immigrants in Minnesota.
The president wrote on his Truth Social platform that he was “terminating effective immediately, the Temporary Protected Status (TPS Program) for Somalis in Minnesota.”
Mr. Trump said, without providing evidence, that “Somali gangs are terrorizing the people of that great State.”
He also accused Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, without proof, of overseeing a state that had become a “hub of fraudulent money laundering activity.”
“Send them back to where they came from,” he said. “It’s OVER!”
In response, Walz said in a social media post on X, “It’s not surprising that the President has chosen to broadly target an entire community. This is what he does to change the subject.”
The president did not provide further details on the move.
TPS is a federal program that allows migrants from unstable countries to live and work legally in the U.S.
Somalia’s TPS designation runs through March 17, 2026, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, an agency that is part of the Department of Homeland Security. As of March 31, there are 705 Somali immigrants in the U.S. approved for TPS, according to Congress.gov. Minnesota also has the largest Somali population in the U.S., the Associated Press reports.
CBS News has reached out to DHS and Walz for comment.
The Trump administration has also moved to end TPS protections for Afghan, Venezuelan, Syrian and South Sudanese nationals. Those actions have faced significant legal challenges.
Republican Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth, who represents Cold Spring, said in a written statement that she’s “glad” that Mr. Trump recognizes the “seriousness of the fraud problem” in the state.
“The unfortunate reality is that far too many individuals who were welcomed into this country have abused the trust and support that was extended to them, and Minnesota taxpayers have suffered billions of dollars in consequences as a result,” Demuth said, without providing evidence.
Jaylani Hussein, president of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations decried the move Friday, saying in a statement that the group was “deeply disappointed that the administration has chosen to end the Somali TPS program in Minnesota, a legal lifeline for families who have built their lives here for decades.”
“This is not just a bureaucratic change; it is a political attack on the Somali and Muslim community driven by Islamophobic and hateful rhetoric,” Hussein said. “We strongly urge President Trump to reverse this misguided decision.”
President Trump on Friday said he is ending deportation protections for Somali immigrants in Minnesota.
The president wrote on his Truth Social platform that he was “terminating effective immediately, the Temporary Protected Status (TPS Program) for Somalis in Minnesota.”
As of March 31, there are 705 Somali immigrants in the U.S. approved for TPS, according to Congress.gov.
Mr. Trump said, without providing evidence, that “Somali gangs are terrorizing the people of that great State.”
He also accused Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, without proof, of overseeing a state that had become a “hub of fraudulent money laundering activity.”
“Send them back to where they came from,” he said. “It’s OVER!”
The president did not provide further details on the move.
TPS is a federal program that allows migrants from unstable countries to live and work legally in the U.S.
Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, said in a written statement that she’s “glad” that Mr. Trump recognizes the “seriousness of the fraud problem” in the state.
“The unfortunate reality is that far too many individuals who were welcomed into this country have abused the trust and support that was extended to them, and Minnesota taxpayers have suffered billions of dollars in consequences as a result,” Demuth said, without providing evidence.
CBS News has reached out to DHS, Gov. Walz and Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith of Minnesota for comment.
The Trump administration has also moved to end TPS protections for Afghan, Venezuelan and South Sudanese nationals. Those actions have faced significant legal challenges.
Washington — The Supreme Court on Friday cleared the way for the Trump administration to end temporary legal protections for more than 300,000 Venezuelan migrants.
The high court agreed to freeze a lower court decision that found the Department of Homeland Security illegally terminated the Temporary Protected Status program for Venezuelan migrants, which allowed them to live and work in the U.S. without the threat of immediate deportation.
By halting the September ruling from U.S. District Judge Edward Chen, the Supreme Court is allowing the Trump administration to move forward with rolling back the legal protections for Venezuelans. This is the second time the high court has green-lit the Department of Homeland Security’s move to strip hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans of their temporary legal protections.
“Although the posture of the case has changed, the parties’ legal arguments and relative harms generally have not,” the Supreme Court said in an unsigned order. “The same result that we reached in May is appropriate here.”
Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor said they would have denied the Trump administration’s request for emergency relief, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.
“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. I view today’s decision as yet another grave misuse of our emergency docket,” Jackson wrote in a dissenting opinion.
DHS called the order a “win for the American people and commonsense” in a post on X.
“Temporary Protected Status was always supposed to be just that: Temporary. Yet, previous administrations abused, exploited, and mangled TPS into a de facto amnesty program,” the agency said.
“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 and National TPS Alliance member Cecilia Gonzalez, who has lived in the U.S. since 2017, said in a statement.
In seeking emergency relief from the Supreme Court, Solicitor General D. John Sauer had argued that the lower court could not review Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s decision to cancel an extension of TPS status for Venezuela and then revoke the country’s designation.
Sauer wrote in a filing that the district court’s ruling “impedes important immigration enforcement policies” by allowing 300,000 Venezuelan migrants to stay in the U.S. despite Noem’s determination that doing so is “contrary to the national interest.”
The Trump administration’s request for emergency relief is the latest in which it has accused lower courts of ignoring Supreme Court orders issued during earlier stages of cases. In this instance, the high court in May allowed the Trump administration to end the TPS program for Venezuelans while legal proceedings moved forward. That decision stemmed from a preliminary order from Chen, who went on to decide the full merits of the case last month.
The judge ruled the Trump administration’s attempt to strip TPS from Venezuelans living in the U.S. was illegal. Chen wrote the Supreme Court’s May decision, which he said lacked “any specific rationale,” did not bar him from adjudicating the case on the merits and issuing a final decision providing relief.
“This case arose from action taken post haste by the current DHS Secretary, Kristi Noem, to revoke the legal status of Venezuelan and Haitian TPS holders, sending them back to conditions that are so dangerous that even the State Department advises against travel to their home countries,” Chen wrote in his ruling. “The Secretary’s action in revoking TPS was not only unprecedented in the manner and speed in which it was taken but also violates the law.”
But Sauer, the solicitor general, accused the district judge of disregarding the Supreme Court’s earlier order, which he said was binding.
“Lower courts cannot treat this Court’s orders as good for only one stage of only one case by gesturing at irrelevant distinctions, subjectively grading the persuasiveness of the Court’s perceived reasoning, or faulting the Court’s terseness,” he wrote.
Congress created the program known as TPS in 1990 to provide temporary immigration protections for migrants from countries beset by wars, natural disasters or other “extraordinary and temporary” conditions that make it dangerous for deportees to return. Migrants from a country designated for TPS cannot be removed from the U.S. and are authorized to work for the length of the designation, which can last for up to 18 months.
The Biden administration designated Venezuela for TPS in March 2021, and it was later extended. Then-Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas also re-designated Venezuela for TPS.
But after the second Trump administration came into power, Noem canceled her predecessor’s extension and then rescinded the program for Venezuela, finding that allowing migrants to temporarily stay in the U.S. would be “contrary to the national interest.” The secretary said that the TPS program had allowed a significant number of Venezuelan migrants without a path to legal immigration status to settle in the U.S., straining local resources.
The Trump administration urged Venezuelans shielded through the program to self-deport before the protections would end in April.
But in February, a group of TPS beneficiaries and the National TPS Alliance challenged the Trump administration’s move and sought to have the legal protections reinstated. They succeeded in securing preliminary relief in March and then prevailed on the merits last month.
The Trump administration asked a federal appeals court to pause the district court’s decision while it appealed, but the request was denied.
In its bid for emergency relief from the Supreme Court, the Trump administration said federal immigration law forbids courts from second-guessing Noem’s decision to end the TPS program for Venezuela.
“[T]he Secretary determined that even a six-month extension of TPS would harm the United States’ ‘national security’ and ‘public safety,’ while also straining police stations, city shelters, and aid services in local communities that had reached a breaking point,” Sauer wrote. “Moreover, delay of the Secretary’s decisions threatens to undermine the United States’ foreign policy, which involves complex negotiations with Venezuela.”
But lawyers for the plaintiffs, led by the National TPS Alliance, called the Trump administration’s assertion that the district judge ignored the Supreme Court’s earlier order “baseless and dangerous.”
They also said that the Supreme Court’s earlier order, which allowed the administration to end the temporary deportation protections, caused significant harm to Venezuelans.
“People lost their jobs, were jailed, and ultimately deported to a country that remains extremely unsafe,” lawyers wrote in a Supreme Court filing. “The summary judgment order below has provided respite from that harm by restoring the status quo. Disturbing it now will cause massive injuries to Plaintiffs and their loved ones, including many American children.”
The TPS beneficiaries told the court that Noem has exercised “unprecedented authority to vacate a TPS extension at any time, for any reason,” which they said violates the TPS system created by Congress.
Since President Trump returned to the White House, his administration has sought to end programs allowing certain migrants to live and work in the U.S. The Supreme Court has allowed many of the president’s immigration policies to move forward, including its cancellation of a program benefiting roughly 500,000 Cubans, Nicaraguans, Haitians and Venezuelans.
It has also let federal immigration authorities resume sweeping enforcement stops in the Los Angeles area, conducted as part of the campaign to carry out mass deportations of people in the U.S. unlawfully.
Judge blocks Trump from ending TPS for Venezuelans and Haitians – CBS News
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A federal judge in California ruled that the Trump administration’s attempt to end the Temporary Protected Status program for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan and Haitian migrants was unlawful. Camilo Montoya-Galvez explains.
Washington — A federal appeals court on Friday decided to revisit a case that could decide the fate of more than 300,000 immigrants living in the U.S. legally on humanitarian grounds, setting aside a ruling that had allowed the government to revoke their temporary legal status.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals voided a 2020 ruling issued by a three-judge panel in the California-based appeals court that had allowed the Trump administration to terminate the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) of hundreds of thousands of immigrants from El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua and Sudan.
Granting a request by attorneys representing immigrants enrolled in the TPS programs, the appeals court said it would hear the case once more, this time “en banc,” or with all active judges participating. It’s unclear though when the 9th Circuit could rule on the case again.
Immigrant rights activists and those with Temporary Protected Status march near the White House in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 23, 2022.
OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images
Friday’s ruling is a victory, at least in the near-term, for TPS holders and their advocates, who have urged Congress for years to allow those enrolled in the program to apply for permanent U.S. residency.
The decision is also the latest development in a complicated, years-long legal battle over the TPS policy, which allows the Department of Homeland Security to give deportation protections and work permits to immigrants from countries beset by war, environmental disasters or other humanitarian crises.
As part of its efforts to curtail humanitarian immigration policies, the Trump administration tried to end multiple TPS programs, arguing that the authority had long been abused by other administrations.
A federal judge in 2018 barred the Trump administration from ending the TPS programs for El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua and Sudan, saying officials had not properly justified the decision, and that the terminations raised “serious questions” about whether they stemmed from animus against non-White immigrants.
In 2020, a three-judge panel of 9th Circuit judges set aside the lower court ruling, saying courts could not second guess the federal government’s TPS decisions. The panel also said it did not find a direct link between then-President Donald Trump’s disparaging comments about non-White immigrants, and the TPS terminations.
That ruling, however, never took effect because attorneys representing TPS holders asked for the case to be reheard. The litigation became connected with another lawsuit filed against the Trump administration’s efforts to end TPS for Nepal and Honduras, and the government agreed it would not terminate those policies until it was allowed to revoke the programs for El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua and Sudan.
Starting in 2021, the case was paused for more than a year as the Biden administration entered negotiations with lawyers for TPS holders to try to forge a deal to settle the case, including by potentially giving the immigrants in question a path to permanent status.
But those negotiations collapsed in October 2022, fueling concerns that TPS holders from the affected countries could lose their legal status and be forced to leave the U.S., or remain in the country without authorization.
In November, the Biden administration announced it would allow immigrants at the center of the case to keep their work permits and deportation protections at least one full year after the government is allowed to end the TPS programs in question, or until June 30, 2024 — whichever date comes later.
The Biden administration has taken a drastically different position on TPS than the Trump administration. It has created TPS designations for a record number of countries, including Afghanistan, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ukraine and Venezuela, making hundreds of thousands of immigrants eligible for the temporary legal status.
The administration has also announced extensions of the TPS programs for Haitian and Sudanese immigrants living in the U.S., but it has not announced similar moves for immigrants from El Salvador, Nicaragua, Nepal and Honduras, despite requests from advocates.
Ahilan Arulanantham, the lead lawyer representing TPS holders, and co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law, said the Biden administration can announce new programs for these countries to ensure the fate of his clients is not dictated by court rulings.
“We are pleased that the Ninth Circuit has agreed to rehear this case,” Arulanantham said. “But we should never have gotten to this point. President Biden had — and still has — every opportunity to fulfill his promise to protect the TPS-holder community.”
As of the end of 2021, 241,699 Salvadorans, 76,737 Hondurans, 14,556 Nepalis and 4,250 Nicaraguans were enrolled in the TPS program, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) data.
TPS allows beneficiaries to live and work in the country without fear of deportation, but it does not provide them a path to permanent residency or citizenship. Those who lose their TPS protections could become eligible for deportation, unless they apply for, and are granted, another immigration benefit.
