President Donald Trump’s administration is illegally seeking to deport hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans and Haitians to their conflict-stricken nations, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled Friday.
The people affected by the ruling have been living in the United States under temporary protected status, or TPS, granted to undocumented immigrants with no serious criminal record who would be endangered by war, natural disasters or other conditions in their homeland. Trump opposes TPS and contends it has been used to protect members of criminal gangs.
But U.S. District Judge Edward Chen said removing the protections from Venezuelans and Haitians would return them to “conditions that are so dangerous that even the State Department advises against travel to their home countries.”
“For 35 years, the TPS statute has been faithfully executed by presidential administrations from both parties, affording relief based on the best available information obtained by the Department of Homeland Security in consultation with the State Department and other agencies, a process that involves careful study and analysis,” the judge wrote. “Until now.”
He did not say how many immigrants were covered by the ruling, but advocacy groups said it would protect hundreds of thousands from each nation. Chen had previously halted the deportation of 350,000 Venezuelans with TPS status, but the Supreme Court froze his order in May and allowed the administration to seek their deportation.
Friday’s ruling “provides immediate relief to several hundred thousand Venezuelans who should not have been subjected to this lawless policy in the first place,” said their attorney, Ahilan Arulanantham, a UCLA law professor. “Sadly, today’s ruling comes too late for many Venezuelans who were detained and deported under that policy because the Supreme Court allowed it to take effect without giving any reasons. We are hopeful the rule of law will now prevail.”
In Friday’s decision, Chen said Trump’s Homeland Security secretary, Kristi Noem, terminated TPS for both groups of migrants as soon as she took office, with “no meaningful review,” reversing extensive findings and decisions by her predecessors. He said it was the first such action in the program’s 35-year history.
The judge said Noem had made unfounded assertions that “Venezuela didn’t send us their best” but instead sent “criminals.” She referred to Venezuelan migrants as “dirtbags” in a Jan. 29 Fox News interview. Chen also cited Trump’s campaign claims that Haitian migrants were eating household pets in Ohio.
Such statements are evidence that the administration’s actions were “based on racial, ethnic, and/or national origin animus,” said Chen, who was appointed to the court by President Barack Obama.
