Judge pauses Trump administration plans to end temporary legal
protections for Venezuelans
[April 01, 2025]
By JANIE HAR
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal judge on Monday paused plans by the Trump
administration to end temporary legal protections for hundreds of
thousands of Venezuelans, a week before they were scheduled to expire.
The order by U.S. District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco is a
relief for 350,000 Venezuelans whose Temporary Protected Status was set
to expire April 7 after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem reversed
protections granted by the Biden administration.
Chen said in his ruling that the action by Noem “threatens to: inflict
irreparable harm on hundreds of thousands of persons whose lives,
families, and livelihoods will be severely disrupted, cost the United
States billions in economic activity, and injure public health and
safety in communities throughout the United States.”
He said the government had failed to identify any “real countervailing
harm in continuing TPS for Venezuelan beneficiaries” and said plaintiffs
will likely succeed in showing that Noem’s actions “are unauthorized by
law, arbitrary and capricious, and motivated by unconstitutional
animus.”
Chen, who was appointed to the bench by President Barack Obama, a
Democrat, said his order in the lawsuit brought by the National TPS
Alliance applies nationally. Noem had also announced the end of TPS for
an estimated 250,000 additional Venezuelans in September.
The judge gave the government one week to file notice of an appeal and
the plaintiffs one week to file to pause for 500,000 Haitians whose TPS
protections are set to expire in August. Alejandro Mayorkas, the
previous secretary, had extended protections for all three cohorts into
2026.
"Today is a good day for the migrant community in this country,” said
Pablo Alvarado, co-executive director of the National Day Laborer
Organizing Network.

He said that people fleeing war-torn El Salvador who initially benefited
from the TPS program fought to maintain protections that came to include
countries such as Ukraine, Sudan and Syria — and the broader community
must continue fighting.
“It takes so much courage to come forward and say, ‘Here I am, and I’m
going to fight for this,’” Alvarado said. “We’re not going to throw
anyone under the bus. We’re going to fight for everyone because everyone
is deserving.”
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a
request for comment.
Congress created TPS, as the law is known, in 1990 to prevent
deportations to countries suffering from natural disasters or civil
strife, giving people authorization to live and work in the U.S. in
increments of up to 18 months if the Homeland Security secretary deems
conditions in their home countries are unsafe for return.
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Venezuelan migrants deported from the United States peer through
windows of an Eastern Airlines plane upon arriving at Simon Bolivar
International Airport in Maiquetia, Venezuela, Sunday, March 30,
2025. (AP Photo/Cristian Hernandez)

The reversals are a major about-face from immigration policies under
former President Joe Biden, a Democrat, and come as Republican
President Donald Trump and his top aides have ratcheted up attacks
on judges who rule against them, with immigration being at the
forefront of many disagreements.
At a hearing last Monday, lawyers for TPS holders said that Noem has
no authority to cancel the protections and that her actions were
motivated in part by racism. They asked the judge to pause Noem’s
orders, citing the irreparable harm to TPS holders struggling with
fear of deportation and potential separation from family members.
Government lawyers for Noem said that Congress gave the secretary
clear and broad authority to make determinations related to the TPS
program and that the decisions were not subject to judicial review.
Plaintiffs have no right to thwart the secretary’s orders from being
carried out, they said.
But Chen found the government's arguments unpersuasive and said that
numerous derogatory and false comments by Noem — and by Trump —
against Venezuelans as criminals show that racial animus was a
motivator in ending protections.
“Acting on the basis of a negative group stereotype and generalizing
such stereotype to the entire group is the classic example of
racism,” he wrote.
Biden sharply expanded use of TPS and other temporary forms of
protection in a strategy to create and expand legal pathways to live
in the United States while suspending asylum for those who enter
illegally.
Trump has questioned the the impartiality of a federal judge who
blocked his plans to deport Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador,
levelling his criticism only hours before his administration asked
an appeals court to lift the judge’s order.
The administration has also said it was revoking temporary
protections for more than 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and
Venezuelans who have come to the U.S. since October 2022 through
another legal avenue called humanitarian parole, which Biden used
more than any other president. Their two-year work permits will
expire April 24.
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