Trump administration may not end Venezuelan migrants’ protections, court rules

The Trump administration has deported alleged Venezuelan gang members to a notorious prison in El Salvador for which the US government is paying $6 million. (AP Photo)

A federal appeals court has rejected a bid by US President Donald Trump’s administration to set aside a judge’s order holding it unlawfully rolled back temporary protections from deportation granted to 600,000 Venezuelans living in the United States. A three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in a decision late on Wednesday declined to pause a judge’s September 5 ruling holding that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem lacked the authority to end the program, 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 US District Judge Edward Chen’s ruling while the administration pursued an appeal. The US Department of Justice has said that if a stay was denied it may take the case to the US Supreme Court, which in May put on hold an earlier injunction Chen issued and cleared the way for the administration to end temporary protections for about 348,000 of the Venezuelans at issue.

Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, in a statement said the 9th Circuit’s ruling “is nothing short of open defiance against the US Supreme Court.” The administration had contended the Supreme Court’s May decision meant Chen’s latest ruling had to be similarly paused.

“Luckily for us, and for all Americans, the Ninth Circuit is not the last stop,” McLaughlin said.

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.

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The program was created in 1991. It was extended under Democratic President Joe Biden 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 program and the National TPS Alliance, an advocacy group, who challenged Noem’s action. Chen’s decision had also applied to 521,000 Haitians whose TPS status was also revoked by Noem in February. The administration did not ask the 9th Circuit to put that part of Chen’s ruling on hold as a second judge in New York had already blocked the revocation of the Haitians’ status.