The Trump administration can proceed with plans to rescind temporary deportation protections for more than 60,000 Honduran, Nepali and Nicaraguan immigrants, a federal appellate court in San Francisco ruled Aug. 20.
The two-page decision by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in California overturned a July 31 lower-court ruling preventing the Department of Homeland Security from terminating Temporary Protective Status for the immigrants while their lawsuit opposing the move continues to be litigated.
TPS shelters migrants fleeing war and natural disasters from deportation and allows them to work in the U.S. legally as their asylum cases move through the immigration court system.
Kristi Noem
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem announced the designation would end Aug. 5 for Nepali immigrants and Sept. 8 for Hondurans and Nicaraguans after determining the conditions in their home nations have changed and no longer meet the conditions of TPS. The appellate ruling means Nepali immigrants immediately lose TPS while their Latin American co-plaintiffs lose legal status next month.
DHS is also seeking to rescind the status for hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Cuba, Haiti and Venezuela, and to end humanitarian parole programs, as well. The administration faces multiple lawsuits from immigrants and civil rights groups to retain the protections.
National TPS Alliance II v. Noem argues Trump decided to end Nepali, Honduran and Nicaraguan TPS without a proper review of the conditions in those countries and the decision was “motivated by racial animus.”
Trina Johnson
In her order temporarily halting Noem’s action, U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson in San Francisco said the plaintiffs made a compelling case that race motivated the decision to remove their protections: “The freedom to live fearlessly, the opportunity of liberty and the American dream. That is all plaintiffs seek. Instead, they are told to atone for their race, leave because of their names and purify their blood. The court disagrees.”
Thompson added that Trump’s 2023 statement claiming migrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” and his January executive order equating the presence of immigrants with an “invasion” lend credence to the claims of racism.
“Plaintiffs provide sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the secretary’s TPS Nepal, Honduras and Nicaragua terminations were based on a preordained determination to end the TPS program, rather than an objective review of the country conditions,” the court ruled.
In oral arguments at the Ninth Circuit Aug. 19, the Justice Department dismissed Trump’s “poisoning” comment as “ancient” history and argued courts have no authority to interfere with Noem’s handling of TPS, Politico reported.
The government also cited a May 19 Supreme Court decision permitting DHS to terminate TPS for 350,000 Venezuelans as rationale for ending the status for immigrants from Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua.
Ahilan Arulanantham
Ahilan Arulanantham, co-director of the UCLA Center for Immigration Law and Policy, said the cases are not analogous because the plaintiffs in National TPS Alliance II v. Noem have been in the U.S. a decade or more, while Venezuelans affected by the Supreme Court decision won protections much more recently.
“The thing we had in the Supreme Court had nothing to do with these at all,” Arulanantham said during the hearing.
Nevertheless, a three-judge panel issued the order staying Thompson’s decision after an urgent request from the Trump administration.
“The court’s failure to provide any reasoning for its decision, including why this was an ‘emergency,’ falls far short of what due process requires and our clients deserve,” Arulanantham said in response. “The decision simply sanctions the government’s power grab, exposing tens of thousands of people to illegal detention and deportation.”
Jessica Bansal
The ruling confirms the administration is “systematically de-documenting” immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for decades while starting businesses and families with American-citizen children, said Jessica Bansal, attorney at the National Day Laborer Organization.
“The court’s unexplained decision to let the TPS terminations take effect — despite a district court finding them likely unconstitutional — will cause tremendous, senseless hardship for tens of thousands of families, including over 40,000 U.S.-citizen children of TPS holders,” she said.
The Catholic Legal Immigration Network lamented the decision and expressed concern for the fate of TPS holders from Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua.
“More than 63,000 immigrants from those three countries stand to lose their status rapidly and be uprooted from families, jobs and communities,” CLINIC Executive Director Anna Gallagher said.
Plaintiffs in the case said they are devastated by the Ninth Circuit’s order.
“I am heartbroken by the court’s decision. I’ve lived in the U.S. for years, and my kids are U.S. citizens and have never even been to Nepal. This ruling leaves us and thousands of other TPS families in fear and uncertainty,” said plaintiff Sandhya Lama, a TPS holder from Nepal.
Honduran Teofilo Martinez vowed the plaintiffs and their attorneys will continue to advocate for just immigration policies.
“We will not stop organizing and fighting for the right to stay in the only home many of us have ever known. We will keep fighting for permanent protections and to stop the cruel separation of our families,” he said.