Tag Archives: Judge Edward Chen

Newsweek: Trump administration asks Supreme Court for new emergency order

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The Trump administration on Friday asked the Supreme Court to let it move forward with ending protections for more than 300,000 Venezuelan migrants. The Justice Department is seeking to block a San Francisco judge’s ruling that found the administration acted unlawfully when it terminated Temporary Protected Status for the group.

A federal appeals court declined to halt U.S. District Judge Edward Chen’s decision while the case proceeds.

In May, the Supreme Court had already overturned another Chen order affecting about 350,000 Venezuelans, without explanation, as is typical for emergency appeals. Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the justices the earlier ruling should guide them again.

Why It Matters

The Trump administration has taken a hardline stance on Temporary Protected Status, arguing that the protections are meant to be temporary but have been abused by consecutive administrations. Immigration advocates have countered, saying that conditions in Venezuela and other countries have not improved enough to send people home.

What To Know

Friday’s plea by the Trump administration continues a cycle of court orders and challenges around the attempts by Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem to end TPS for two groups of Venezuelans.

“This case is familiar to the Court and involves the increasingly familiar and
untenable phenomenon of lower courts disregarding this Court’s orders on the emergency docket,” the administration wrote in its submission to the Supreme Court.

The argument is that Chen’s final order in the case rested on the same legal basis that had been stayed by the Supreme Court just months earlier.

This back-and-forth has left around 300,000 Venezuelans in limbo, alongside thousands more in a second group also facing the potential loss of their legal status.

Under TPS, immigrants from designated countries are allowed to remain in the United States without fear of deportation. They are granted permission to work while in the U.S., and can sometimes travel out of the country.

Noem and her predecessors hold the power to grant and revoke TPS per country. Status is renewed every 18 months, and the first Trump administration made similar attempts to revoke it but also faced legal challenges, which continued until President Joe Biden took office in 2021.

Part of Noem’s reasoning is that conditions in Venezuela have improved significantly, meaning it is safe for immigrants to return home. This has not necessarily aligned with the broader Trump administration’s views on the South American nation and its leader, Nicolas Maduro.

Trump Admin Moves to Revoke TPS for Syria

Also on Friday, the DHS moved to revoke TPS for another country: Syria.

In a Federal Register notice, the DHS reiterated that conditions had improved in the country, indicating that TPS was no longer necessary. Protections are set to lapse on September 30, 2025.

Protections were first introduced in 2012, at the height of the unrest in the Middle East at the time.

What People Are Saying

The Trump administration, in its filing to the Supreme Court Friday: “Since the statute was enacted, every administration has designated countries for TPS or extended those designations in extraordinary circumstances. But Secretaries across administrations have also terminated designations when the conditions
were no longer met.”

Adelys Ferro, co-founder and executive director of the Venezuelan American Caucus, told Newsweek on August 29: “We, more than 8 million Venezuelans, just didn’t leave the country just because it’s fun, it’s because we had no choice…Venezuelans with TPS are not a threat to the United States.”

What Happens Next

The Supreme Court must now decide whether to take up the appeal.

Trump administration asks Supreme Court for new emergency order
In May, the Supreme Court already overturned another lower court order affecting about 350,000 Venezuelans.

https://www.newsweek.com/supreme-court-donald-trump-immigrants-deportation-venezuela-migrants-2132804

San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. judge blocks Trump administration from ending legal status for Venezuelans and Haitians

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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.

S.F. judge blocks Trump administration from ending legal status for Venezuelans and Haitians

https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/tps-protections-21033502.php

Associated Press: Appeals court blocks Trump administration from ending legal protections for 600,000 Venezuelans

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A federal appeals court on Friday blocked the Trump administration’s plans to end protections for 600,000 people from Venezuela who have had permission to live and work in the United States.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously upheld a lower court ruling that maintained temporary protected status for Venezuelans while the case proceeded through court.

An email to the Department of Homeland Security for comment was not immediately returned.

The 9th Circuit judges found that plaintiffs were likely to succeed on their claim that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had no authority to vacate or set aside a prior extension of temporary protected status because the governing statute written by Congress does not permit it. Then-President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration had extended temporary protected status for people from Venezuela.

“In enacting the TPS statute, Congress designed a system of temporary status that was predictable, dependable, and insulated from electoral politics,” Judge Kim Wardlaw, who was nominated by President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, wrote for panel. The other two judges on the panel were also nominated by Democratic presidents.

U.S. District Judge Edward Chen of San Francisco found in March that plaintiffs were likely to prevail on their claim that President Donald Trump’s Republican administration overstepped its authority in terminating the protections and were motivated by racial animus in doing so. Chen ordered a freeze on the terminations, but the Supreme Court reversed him without explanation, which is common in emergency appeals.

It is unclear what effect Friday’s ruling will have on the estimated 350,000 Venezuelans in the group of 600,000 whose protections expired in April. Their lawyers say some have already been fired from jobs, detained in immigration jails, separated from their U.S. citizen children and even deported. Protections for the remaining 250,000 Venezuelans are set to expire Sept. 10.

Congress authorized temporary protected status, or TPS, as part of the Immigration Act of 1990. It allows the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security to grant legal immigration status to people fleeing countries experiencing civil strife, environmental disaster or other “extraordinary and temporary conditions” that prevent a safe return to that home country.

In ending the protections, Noem said that conditions in Venezuela had improved and that it was not in the U.S. national interest to allow migrants from there to stay on for what is a temporary program.

Millions of Venezuelans have fled political unrest, mass unemployment and hunger. Their country is mired in a prolonged crisis brought on by years of hyperinflation, political corruption, economic mismanagement and an ineffectual government.

Attorneys for the U.S. government argued the Homeland Security secretary’s clear and broad authority to make determinations related to the TPS program were not subject to judicial review. They also denied that Noem’s actions were motivated by racial animus.

Appeals court blocks Trump administration from ending legal protections for 600,000 Venezuelans
A federal appeals court has blocked the Trump administration’s plans to end protections for 600,000 people from Venezuela who have had permission to live and work in the United States.

https://apnews.com/article/immigration-trump-temporary-status-venezuelans-7c70b2d301c43663a6f506af527637a4

Associated Press: Judge blocks administration from revoking protected status for small subset of Venezuelans

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An estimated 5,000 Venezuelans granted temporary protected status can continue to work and live in the U.S. despite a Supreme Court ruling revoking protections while their lawsuit against the Trump administration is pending.

U.S. District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco ruled Friday that Venezuelans whose Temporary Protected Status was extended to October 2026 are not affected by the Supreme Court’s order and are not eligible for deportation.

Judge blocks administration from revoking protected status for small subset of Venezuelans
A federal judge says an estimated 5,000 Venezuelans granted temporary protected status can continue to work and live in the U.S. despite a Supreme Court ruling revoking protections.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-venezuelans-tps-federal-judge-be20785b80aa5d2ec27f1100132d5010