Judge delays termination of legal status for immigrants from 3 countries

A federal judge in California temporarily blocked the Trump administration from ending the legal status and deportation protections for tens of thousands of immigrants from Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua.

While it could be suspended by a higher court, the ruling is a reprieve for more than 60,000 immigrants who had been previously allowed by the U.S. government to live and work in the country legally for years and in some cases, since the late 1990s, under the Temporary Protected Status program.

Immigrants from Nepal enrolled in the TPS program were set to lose their legal status next week, on Aug. 5. TPS holders from Honduras and Nicaragua, meanwhile, were slated to see their work permits and deportation protections under the program expire in early September.

U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson in San Francisco ordered the planned TPS terminations for these countries to be postponed through at least Nov. 18, when she scheduled a hearing on the merits of a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's decision. Thompson said the delay could be extended beyond Nov. 18.

Created by Congress in 1990, TPS allows the Department of Homeland Security to offer a temporary safe haven — in the form of deportation deferrals and work authorization — to immigrants from countries beset by armed conflict, an environmental disaster or other crises.

Those enrolled in TPS are generally immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally or who arrived legally on temporary visas and then applied for the humanitarian program.

The Trump administration has sought to severely curtail TPS programs, arguing that some of them are contrary to U.S. national interests and that they've been in place for too long, despite their temporary nature and improved conditions in the relevant countries.

The administration, for example, has noted that the TPS programs for Honduras and Nicaragua were first created in 1999, after Hurricane Mitch caused catastrophic floods and killed thousands in Central America. The TPS program for Nepal was announced in 2015, after an earthquake hit the small Asian country. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has said all three countries have recovered from those environmental disasters.

But Thompson, the San Francisco-based federal judge, said the TPS holders who sued the Trump administration were likely to succeed in their arguments that Noem's decisions were "preordained" actions that did not fully consider lingering conditions in Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua.

Thompson, who was appointed by former President Biden, also found the plaintiffs were likely to prevail in arguing that Noem's decisions were "motivated by racial animus." Thompson cited statements by Noem that she said stereotyped the TPS program and associated immigrants with criminality.

The judge also referenced a comment made by President Trump during the 2024 campaign in which he said migrants entering the U.S. illegally were "poisoning the blood of our country."

"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. The Court disagrees," Thompson wrote in her order.

Representatives for DHS did not immediately respond to a request to comment on Thursday's court order, including on the judge's suggestion that the TPS terminations were linked to racial animus.

According to official government statistics, there are 72,000 Hondurans, 12,700 Nepalis and 4,000 Nicaraguans enrolled in the TPS policy. Some of them, however, have been able to gain green cards, or lawful permanent U.S. residency, including 21,000 of the Honduran TPS holders. An estimated 5,500 and 1,100 TPS holders from Nepal and Nicaragua, respectively, have also become permanent residents, according to government data.

Since Mr. Trump took office, his administration has announced plans to terminate TPS for hundreds of thousands of immigrants, including Afghans, Cameroonians, Haitians and Venezuelans.

Federal courts have blocked some of those terminations, but the Supreme Court allowed the administration to revoke the TPS protections of more than 300,000 Venezuelans.