Judge blocks Trump administration from ending protections for 60,000
from Central America and Nepal
[August 01, 2025]
By JANIE HAR and JAIMIE DING
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal judge ruled on Thursday against the Trump
administration's plans and extended Temporary Protected Status for
60,000 people from Central America and Asia, including people from
Nepal, Honduras and Nicaragua.
Temporary Protected Status is a protection that can be granted by the
Homeland Security secretary to people of various nationalities who are
in the United States, preventing from being deported and allowing them
to work. The Trump administration has aggressively been seeking to
remove the protection, thus making more people eligible for removal.
It's part of a wider effort by the administration to carry out mass
deportations of immigrants.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem can extend Temporary Protected
Status to immigrants in the U.S. if conditions in their homelands are
deemed unsafe to return due to a natural disaster, political instability
or other dangerous conditions. Noem had ruled to end protections for
tens of thousands of Hondurans and Nicaraguans after determining that
conditions in their homelands no longer warranted them.
The secretary said the two countries had made “significant progress” in
recovering from 1998's Hurricane Mitch, one of the deadliest Atlantic
storms in history.
The designation for an estimated 7,000 from Nepal was scheduled to end
Aug. 5 while protections allowing 51,000 Hondurans and nearly 3,000
Nicaraguans who have been in the U.S. for more than 25 years were set to
expire Sept. 8.
U.S. District Judge Trina L. Thompson in San Francisco did not set an
expiration date but rather ruled to keep the protections in place while
the case proceeds. The next hearing is Nov. 18.
In a sharply written order, Thompson said the administration ended the
migrant status protections without an “objective review of the country
conditions” such as political violence in Honduras and the impact of
recent hurricanes and storms in Nicaragua.
If the protections were not extended, immigrants could suffer from loss
of employment, health insurance, be separated from their families, and
risk being deported to other countries where they have no ties, she
wrote, adding that the termination of Temporary Protection Status for
people from Nepal, Honduras, and Nicaragua would result in a $1.4
billion loss to the economy.
“The freedom to live fearlessly, the opportunity of liberty, and the
American dream. That is all Plaintiffs seek. Instead, they are told to
atone for their race, leave because of their names, and purify their
blood,” Thompson said.
Lawyers for the National TPS Alliance argued that Noem’s decisions were
predetermined by President Donald Trump’s campaign promises and
motivated by racial animus.
Thompson agreed, saying that statements Noem and Trump have made
perpetuated the "discriminatory belief that certain immigrant
populations will replace the white population.”
“Color is neither a poison nor a crime,” she wrote.
The advocacy group that filed the lawsuit said designees usually have a
year to leave the country, but in this case, they got far less.
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U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem sits on a horse as she
speaks to the press upon arrival to the Campo De Mayo Military Base
in Buenos Aires province, Argentina, Monday, July 28, 2025. (AP
Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)
“They gave them two months to leave the country. It’s awful,” said
Ahilan Arulanantham, an attorney for plaintiffs at a hearing
Tuesday.
Honduras Deputy Foreign Minister Antonio García told The Associated
Press, “The judge recognized the need of the (TPS holders) to be
able to work in peace, tranquility and legally.”
He recalled that during the first Trump administration, there was a
similar legal challenge and the fight took five years in the courts.
He hoped for a similar outcome this time that would allow the
Hondurans to remain in the U.S.
“Today’s news is hopeful and positive and gives us time and oxygen,
hopefully it will be a long road, and the judge will have the final
word and not President Trump,” he said.
Meanwhile in Nicaragua, hundreds of thousands have fled into exile
as the government shuttered thousands of nongovernmental
organizations and imprisoned political opponents. Nicaragua
President Daniel Ortega and his wife and co-President Rosario
Murillo have consolidated complete control in Nicaragua since Ortega
returned to power two decades ago.
In February, a panel of U.N. experts warned the Nicaraguan
government had dismantled the last remaining checks and balances and
was “systematically executing a strategy to cement total control of
the country through severe human rights violations.”
The broad effort by the Republican administration ’s crackdown on
immigration has been going after people who are in the country
illegally but also by removing protections that have allowed people
to live and work in the U.S. on a temporary basis.
The Trump administration has already terminated protections for
about 350,000 Venezuelans, 500,000 Haitians, more than 160,000
Ukrainians and thousands of people from Afghanistan and Cameroon.
Some have pending lawsuits at federal courts.
The government argued that Noem has clear authority over the program
and that her decisions reflect the administration’s objectives in
the areas of immigration and foreign policy.
“It is not meant to be permanent,” Justice Department attorney
William Weiland said.
___
Ding reported from Los Angeles. Marlon González contributed from
Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
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