Judge Blocks Axing of Migrant Protections for Venezuelans (2)

A federal judge in San Francisco blocked the Trump administration from canceling deportation protections for several hundred thousand Venezuelans in the US.

About 350,000 Venezuelans would have lost a legal status known as Temporary Protected Status on April 7 barring court action.

District Court Judge Edward M. Chen found plaintiffs were likely to succeed in showing the termination of TPS protections by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was unlawful, arbitrary and capricious, and motivated by unconstitutional animus in an order Monday.

The termination of TPS benefits would damage the economy and public safety, Chen wrote. And he found the government had failed to identify any harm in continuing the protections.

The TPS program allows immigrants from designated countries to stay in the US for up to 18 months and apply for legal work authorization when they can’t safely return home because of armed conflict or natural disasters. Although the Biden administration issued TPS extensions for Venezuelans and Haitians in January, Noem rescinded the protections and later announced she would let previous designations expire.

The National TPS Alliance challenged the terminations, arguing DHS exceeded its authority and violated the Administrative Procedure Act by prematurely ending protections.

The group also argued that removing the benefits was motivated by racial bias of Trump officials in violation of the US Constitution’s equal protection guarantee under the Fifth Amendment.

Noem made sweeping negative generalizations about Venezuelans, Chen said, equating TPS holders with gang members, criminals, and mentally unstable persons.

“This is evident not only in what she said, but also in the fact that she decided to take en masse actions against all Venezuelan TPS beneficiaries, who number in the hundreds of thousands,” he wrote. “Acting on the basis of a negative group stereotype and generalizing such stereotype to the entire group is the classic example of racism.”

‘A Lot of Fear’

About half a million Haitians would see TPS protections end in August if the terminations go forward. Another quarter million Venezuelans covered by a separate TPS designation would lose protections in September.

Some TPS holders had already begun receiving notifications from employers that they would lose their jobs this week, said Cecilia González Herrera, a Venezuelan who was at risk of losing protections in September. In Florida, where González Herrera lives, they had also been notified that drivers licenses would no longer be considered valid when TPS protections expired.

Recipients faced concerns that they would lose employment and be targeted for deportation, she told reporters after Monday’s order.

“There was a lot of fear,” she added.

Plaintiffs will have an opportunity to ask Chen to postpone the termination of protections for Haiti as well.

For now, Chen’s order means all 600,000 Venezuelans who benefited from the Biden administration’s January extension will maintain protections, Ahilan Arulanantham, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law and counsel for the plaintiffs, told reporters Monday.

“In terms of protecting people from mass deportation, it’s really hard to overstate the impact of this decision,” he said.

The Immigration and Nationality Act requires DHS to assess conditions in a designated country at least 60 days before protections expire to determine whether or not they should be renewed. The plaintiffs had argued that the review process at DHS was deficient and that Noem’s “national interest” justification for the terminations isn’t allowed under the statute.

DHS didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Chen’s Monday order.

The Trump administration had argued that the terminations were based on immigration policy objectives and not racial animus. And it said the court lacked jurisdiction to review the decision anyway.

Chen said within a week the government should notify the court whether it will appeal the order and the plaintiffs should say whether they’ll file a motion to postpone termination of TPS protections for Haitians.

The National TPS Alliance is represented by American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Northern California, the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, and the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at University of Los Angeles School of Law. DHS is represented by the Department of Justice.

Three other lawsuits in the District of Maryland, District of Massachusetts, and Eastern District of New York have challenged the TPS terminations on similar grounds.

The case is National TPS Alliance v. Noem, N.D. Cal., No. 3:25-cv-01766, injunction issued 3/28/25.