A California judge ruled that the Trump administration cannot terminate temporary protected status for migrants from Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua, citing alleged discriminatory intent.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
A federal judge on Wednesday blocked the Trump administration from ending deportation protections for thousands of nationals from Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua, temporarily halting a Department of Homeland Security effort to terminate their legal status in the United States.
The Department of Homeland Security had confirmed that temporary protected status, or TPS, for Nicaragua would end in September, for Honduras also in September, and for Nepal in August.
TPS grants deportation relief and work authorization to foreign nationals already in the United States when their home countries experience natural disasters, armed conflict, or other extraordinary conditions. The program gives the secretary of homeland security authority to designate, extend, or terminate TPS for specific countries.
In a 52-page order issued Dec. 31, U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson of the Northern District of California ruled that the administration could not proceed with the planned terminations. Thompson cited public statements by President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem that she said reflected stereotyping of immigrants protected under TPS as criminal invaders and suggested a belief that certain immigrant populations would replace the white population.
Thompson sided with the National TPS Alliance, an organization representing TPS beneficiaries, concluding that the administration’s actions were motivated by what she described as racial- and national-origin-based animus.
According to Homeland Security estimates, TPS currently covers approximately 72,000 Hondurans, 13,000 Nepalese nationals, and about 4,000 Nicaraguans.
The Trump administration has sought to wind down most TPS designations as part of a broader effort to restrict immigration. In termination notices, the administration has argued that continued protections for nationals from certain countries conflict with U.S. interests and that updated reviews show some countries no longer meet the statutory requirements for the program.
Under the Biden administration, TPS was expanded to cover hundreds of thousands of migrants from Ukraine, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Haiti, and other countries. This year, Noem’s department has moved to terminate TPS for nationals from countries including Syria, Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba, and Nicaragua.
Noem and the Trump administration have said that ending TPS for certain countries is necessary after what they described as the Biden administration’s use of the program “to flood our country with hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals.”
In October, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to proceed with terminating TPS protections for roughly 300,000 Venezuelans. Responding to that ruling, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the program had been improperly transformed into a permanent immigration benefit.
“Temporary Protected Status was always supposed to be just that: temporary,” McLaughlin said at the time. “Yet, previous administrations abused, exploited, and mangled TPS into a de facto amnesty program.”
Despite the high court’s decision, lower courts have continued to block other TPS terminations. Earlier this week, a federal judge in Boston barred an effort to end deportation protections for hundreds of nationals from South Sudan.
According to DHS, Noem has so far ended TPS for Afghanistan, Burma, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, South Sudan, Syria, and Venezuela, and has ordered nationals from those countries to self-deport, according to the department.
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