The Trump administration’s attempt to overturn a judge’s ruling on deportation protections for 600,000 Venezuelans in the U.S. was struck down by a federal appeals court, which found the rollback had been carried out unlawfully.
A three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a decision late Wednesday declined to pause a judge’s September 5 ruling holding that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem lacked the authority to end the programme, known as Temporary Protected Status or TPS.
“Vacating and terminating Venezuela’s TPS status threw the future of these Venezuelan citizens into disarray, and exposed them to a substantial risk of wrongful removal, separation from their families, and loss of employment,” the panel said.
The panel, which included three judges appointed by Democratic presidents, said Congress did not contemplate such a result, and they declined to put on hold San Francisco-based U.S. District Judge Edward Chen’s ruling while the administration pursued an appeal.
U.S. Department of Justice lawyers defending Noem’s decision in court papers had said that if a stay was denied they may take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court for a second time.
The justices in May put on hold an earlier preliminary injunction Chen issued, clearing the way for the administration to end temporary protections for about 348,000 of the Venezuelans at issue.
TPS For Eligible Migrants
Chen’s latest decision also applied to 521,000 Haitians whose TPS status was also revoked by Noem in February. The Trump administration had not asked the 9th Circuit to put that part of Chen’s ruling on hold as a second judge in New York had already blocked the administration from revoking the Haitians’ status.
The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday.
Temporary Protected Status is available to people whose home country has experienced a natural disaster, armed conflict or other extraordinary event. It provides eligible migrants with work authorization and temporary protection from deportation.
The programme was created in 1991 and under Democratic President Joe Biden was extended to cover about 600,000 Venezuelans and 521,000 Haitians. Noem reversed the extensions in February, saying they were no longer justified.
Wednesday’s ruling came in a lawsuit filed by several migrants covered by the TPS programme and the National TPS Alliance, an advocacy group, who challenge Noem’s action.
(With inputs from Reuters)
