A federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from ending deportation protections for tens of thousands of migrants from Central America and Asia.
Judge Trina Thompson of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California — appointed to the bench by the Biden administration — extended Temporary Protected Status (TPS) on Thursday for roughly 60,000 foreign nationals from Honduras, Nicaragua and Nepal, according to court documents. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem declared earlier that protected status was no longer warranted for these migrants, prompting a lawsuit.
In her ruling, the Biden-appointed judge appeared to accuse the Trump administration of racism.
“The freedom to live fearlessly, the opportunity of liberty, and the American dream. That is all Plaintiffs seek,” Thompson stated. “Instead, they are told to atone for their race, leave because of their names, and purify their blood. The Court disagrees.”
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
A federal authority first established in the Immigration Act of 1990, TPS grants sweeping deportation protections and work eligibility to foreign nationals living in the country, including illegal migrants whose home countries are experiencing any number of conflicts or devastating natural disasters, making it potentially unsafe for them to return, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Hondurans and Nicaraguans were granted TPS for the first time in 1999 after Hurricane Mitch caused major destruction to the region, according to court documents. Nepal, a landlocked country nestled in the Himalayan Mountains, was added to the TPS list after an earthquake in 2015.
A major critique of TPS is that it’s a program that is “temporary” in name only, with TPS designations for countries repeatedly being renewed over the years.
Since returning to power, the Trump administration has worked to finally end TPS for a number of other countries, including Haiti, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Cameroon and Venezuela. Noem earlier in July declared the conditions in Nicaragua and Honduras safe for return, noting that both countries made “significant progress” in recovering from Hurricane Mitch’s devastation and are now enjoying popular tourism and other burgeoning industries.
“TPS was never intended to be a de facto asylum program, yet it has been abused as one for decades,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin stated to the DCNF earlier in July, following a court victory that allowed the Trump administration to move forward with ending TPS designations for Afghan and Cameroon nationals.
TPS designations for around 7,000 Nepali nationals was scheduled to end Aug. 5, and protections for roughly 51,000 Honduran nationals and 3,000 Nicaraguans was set to end Sept. 8, according to court documents. Thompson’s court ruling, however, has extended these deadlines — for now.
The Biden-appointed judge has set a new court hearing scheduled for Nov. 18, according to the ruling.
(Featured Image Media Credit: Joe Gratz/Flickr)
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