A federal judge on Monday barred the Trump administration from ending "temporary protected status" (TPS) for 350,000 Venezuelan nationals — which was slated to expire on April 2.

The protection status was set to expire on April 2, 2025, but former Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas extended it to October 2, 2026, before former President Joe Biden left the White House.

Trump's Homeland Secretary Christi Noem vacated Mayorkas's extension. National TPS Alliance, a group that advocates for immigrants, sued the administration to block Noem's order.

U.S. District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco wrote in his ruling:

The court finds that the Secretary [Noem]'s action threatens to: inflict irreparable harm on hundreds of thousands of persons whose lives, families, and livelihoods will be severely disrupted, cost the United States billions in economic activity, and injure public health and safety in communities throughout the United States. At the same time, the government has failed to identify any real countervailing harm in continuing TPS for Venezuela beneficiaries. Plaintiffs have also shown they will likely succeed in demonstrating that the actions taken by the Secretary are unauthorized by law, arbitrary and capricious, and motivated by unconstitutional animus.