Immigration activists hold a demonstration on Temporary Protected Status outside the White House on November 9, 2018, when Donald Trump attempted to end their protections but they were tied up in courts. During his second term, Trump wants again to revoke TPS status and a federal judge on Friday put the process on hold for those from Venezuela and Haiti. File Photo by Mike Theiler/UPI | License Photo
Sept. 5 (UPI) — A federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration for now from ending Temporary Protected Status for more than 1.1 million migrants from Venezuela and Haiti.
U.S. District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco ruled that the change unlawfully “truncated and condensed” the timeline to end temporary legal protections and work permits for people who fled the two Latin American nations. He was appointed by President Barack Obama.
About 600,000 Venezuelans had their protections expire in April or on Sept. 10. They have fled political unrest, mass unemployment and hunger since receiving their protected status in 2021. The ruling affects 500,000 from Haiti.
The Department of Homeland Security has attempted to end the status for several countries. Separate litigation is ongoing for migrants from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua.
“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 a 69-page decision. “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.”
The decision only temporarily halted the agency from deporting them. But Chen said he expects Venezuelans will be able to renew this status while the case goes through the courts, including appeals, and ultimately the Supreme Court.
Earlier, he halted a TPS order for several hundred thousand Venezuelans. But the Supreme Court in May allowed the Trump administration to end the program as it goes through the courts.
Chen said his new decision concerned only preliminary relief, and the high court didn’t bar him from deciding on the case based upon its merits under the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs the rule-making process of the agency.
In planning to appeal, Noem said the government will “use every legal option at the Department’s disposal to end this chaos and prioritize the safety of Americans.”
“For decades the TPS program has been abused, exploited, and politicized as a de facto amnesty program. Its use has been all the more dangerous given the millions of unvetted illegal aliens the Biden Administration let into this country,” the statement obtained by CBS News read.
The Trump administration has argued that conditions in Venezuela and Haiti have improved sufficiently to end those protections.
TPS was established in 1990 to allow for temporary immigrant protections for people experiencing wars,