A federal judge in San Francisco has paused the Trump Administration’s plans to terminate temporary legal protections for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans just one week before they were due to expire. The order by U.S. District Judge Edward Chen will provide relief to approximately 350,000 Venezuelans whose Temporary Protected Status (TPS) was going to end on April 7 after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem reversed protections granted by the Biden Administration.

Chen stated in his ruling that Noem’s actions “threaten to inflict irreparable harm on hundreds of thousands of persons whose lives, families, and livelihoods will be severely disrupted.” The judge also mentioned that there was no real countervailing harm in continuing TPS for Venezuelan beneficiaries and that the government failed to identify any direct harm caused by extending the protection. The judge added that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed in proving that Noem’s actions were unauthorized by law, arbitrary and capricious, and driven by unconstitutional animus.

The National Day Laborer Organizing Network’s co-executive director, Pablo Alvarado, expressed his support for the immigrant community, emphasizing the importance of maintaining protections for people fleeing war-torn countries.

The Department of Homeland Security has yet to respond to a request for comment.

Congress created TPS in 1990 to prevent deportations to countries experiencing natural disasters or civil strife. This law grants people authorization to live and work in the United States for up to 18 months if the Homeland Security secretary deems their home countries unsafe for return.

These reversals in policies mark a significant shift from the immigration policies of former President Joe Biden, and come as Republican President Donald Trump and his administration have taken a more aggressive stance against judges ruling against them, particularly in matters of immigration.

At a hearing last Monday, lawyers for TPS holders argued that Noem had no authority to cancel such protections and that her actions were motivated in part by racism. They requested that the judge halt Noem’s orders, citing the potential irreparable harm to TPS holders and their families.

The government lawyers for Noem responded by stating that Congress granted the secretary the authority to make determinations related to the TPS program, and that the decisions were not subject to judicial review. They argued that the plaintiffs had no right to prevent the secretary’s orders from being carried out.

However, Chen found the government’s arguments unconvincing and determined that numerous derogatory comments made by Noem, and by Trump, against Venezuelans as criminals showed that ending the protections was motivated by racial animus. He added that acting on negative group stereotype and generalizing it to an entire group is a classic example of racism.

Biden had significantly expanded the use of TPS and other temporary forms of protection, creating and expanding legal pathways to live in the United States while suspending asylum for those who enter the country illegally.

Trump has questioned the impartiality of a federal judge who blocked his plans to deport Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador, just hours before his Administration asked an appeals court to lift the judge’s order. The Administration has also said it was revoking temporary protections for more than 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans who have come to the U.S. since October 2022 through another legal avenue called humanitarian parole, which Biden used more than any

Source: https://time.com/7273225/venezuela-tps-migrants-court-order-trump-administration/