Court Rules Against Trump Administration on Venezuelan Protections

A federal appeals court on Sept. 17 rejected an attempt by the Trump administration to set aside a judge’s order ruling that it unlawfully rolled back temporary protected status (TPS) for Venezuelans living in the United States.

The San Francisco-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit declined to pause the Sept. 5 ruling by U.S. District Judge Edward Chen that the administration may not cancel their TPS and that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s decision to do so was unlawful.

The three-judge panel on Wednesday said: “More than 600,000 Venezuelan citizens living in the United States rely on the protections provided by Venezuela’s TPS status.

“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 in its judgment that it declined the request to stay the district court’s order while the administration pursues an appeal.

TPS is a designation that allows people from countries affected by events such as armed conflict, natural disasters, or other extraordinary conditions to stay in the United States. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said it is a temporary benefit that “does not lead to lawful permanent resident status or give any other immigration status.”

In February, the federal government said conditions in Venezuela had improved enough to justify removing the TPS designations. Then, in May, the Supreme Court granted President Donald Trump’s request to remove legal protections for Venezuelan nationals, opening up the potential for deportations.

Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), said that the Ninth Circuit’s ruling “is nothing short of open defiance against the U.S. Supreme Court.”

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

Deportation of Guatemalan Children Blocked

Chen had said earlier this month in his ruling that Noem should not have revoked the status of the TPS holders, “sending them back to conditions that are so dangerous that even the State Department advises against travel to their home countries.”

“The Secretary’s action in revoking TPS was not only unprecedented in the manner and speed in which it was taken but also [violates] the law,” he said.

McLaughlin had said in an August statement: “Temporary Protected Status was always meant to be just that: Temporary.

“TPS was never meant to be a de facto asylum system, yet that is how previous administrations have used it for decades while allowing hundreds of thousands of foreigners into the country without proper vetting.”

In recent months, the DHS announced it would end protections for immigrants under the TPS program for countries including Nicaragua, Honduras, Haiti, and Venezuela.

Some TPSs are more than two decades old. The TPSs for Nicaragua and Honduras were initiated in early 1999 in the wake of Hurricane Mitch.

The ruling from the panel of San Francisco judges came the day before a federal district judge blocked the DHS from deporting a group of Guatemalan minors who entered the United States illegally, and without their parents.

Judge Timothy Kelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Sept. 18 issued the injunction, which is an update on the original order from Aug. 31.

Kelly wrote in an opinion that in a hearing in August, lawyers for the government said that the administration was trying to reunite these children with their parents, who had requested they be returned.

However, the judge said there was “no evidence before the Court that the parents of these children sought their return,” adding that the Guatemalan Attorney General reported that either officials could not locate the parents being sought or those they could find had not asked for their children to be returned.

McLaughlin said the ruling would prevent children from reuniting with their parents.

“Now these children will have to go to shelters,” McLaughlin said, calling it “disgraceful and immoral.”

Reuters, Sam Dorman, and Matthew Vadum contributed to this report.