A federal judge on Monday blocked the Trump administration from revoking legal protections for Haitians enrolled in the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program, granting a last-minute reprieve to about 350,000 people who were set to lose their protections the next day.
U.S. District Court Judge Ana Reyes indefinitely paused the planned termination of Haiti’s TPS program, barring the federal government from stripping active enrollees of their legal status and work permits or from arresting and deporting them.
In an opinion accompanying her order, Reyes sharply criticized Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s decision to end the policy. She ruled the decision was “arbitrary and capricious” and violated the Administrative Procedure Act, finding that the agency failed to adequately consider the “overwhelming evidence of present danger” in Haiti, including political instability, pervasive gang violence and widespread poverty.
Reyes also found that Noem’s decision was “in part” motivated by “racial animus,” citing disparaging remarks made by the secretary and by former President Trump about Haiti and immigrants. Reyes wrote, “Kristi Noem has a First Amendment right to call immigrants killers, leeches, entitlement junkies, and any other inapt name she wants. Secretary Noem, however, is constrained by both our Constitution and the APA to apply faithfully the facts to the law in implementing the TPS program. The record to-date shows she has yet to do that.”
A Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman, Tricia McLaughlin, said the administration would seek Supreme Court review. “Supreme Court, here we come,” she said, calling the ruling “lawless activism” the administration expects to overturn. McLaughlin argued that Haiti’s TPS was granted after an earthquake more than 15 years ago and said the program was never intended to be a de facto amnesty, contending it has been extended too long by previous administrations.
Congress created TPS in 1990 to allow temporary legal refuge for nationals of countries experiencing armed conflict, environmental disaster or other emergencies that make return unsafe. Both Democratic and Republican administrations have used the policy. The Trump administration has moved to terminate most TPS designations, a step that threatened hundreds of thousands of immigrants from countries including Afghanistan, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Honduras, Myanmar, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria and Venezuela. The administration argues TPS programs encourage illegal immigration and have been improperly extended over time.