A federal court has issued an injunction blocking the Trump administration from terminating Temporary Protected Status for four countries of origin

On October 3rd, Federal District Court Judge Edward Chen of California issued a preliminary injunction to stop termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for immigrants from 4 countries: El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Sudan. The first 3 are scheduled for termination in 2019, but Sudan is scheduled for November 2, 2018. TPS is given to immigrants seeking refuge in the U.S. temporarily because their country of origin has been devastated by war or natural phenomena. Currently there are 10 countries on the list. Out of these, 6 have had their termination dates set, all ordered by the Trump administration.

The judge’s ruling in the case of Ramos v. Nielsen reflects the fact that immigrants from these countries would “suffer irreparable harm and great hardship.” The court pointed out that many have been in the U.S. for more than a decade and have U.S.-born children. They provide necessary labor in their communities and ending their status would mean they would have to decide if their whole family would leave or just their non-citizen family members.

Judge Chen held that the cost vastly outweighs any conceived benefit the administration thinks it is saving by terminating TPS for what would amount to hundreds of thousands of people. These individuals and families have assimilated into the United States, they work, they have mortgages, they pay taxes. Sending them back will hurt their local economies, cause defaults on home payments, and potentially injure their children’s chances of a secure future. Sending them back would undermine the purpose of TPS, particularly because the Plaintiffs in the case provided substantial argument that Homeland Security officials both “changed the criteria applied by the prior administrations…without any explanation or justification” and potentially did so “in order to implement and justify a pre-ordained result desired by the White House.”

Since President Trump took office, he has looked not only to reduce “illegal immigration” numbers, but has sought to expel many foreign-born people who are already within the U.S., with and without legal status. As we have written about over the past year, immigrants with TPS have been particularly and mercilessly targeted. This federal decision has restored some humanity to the situation, at least for now. We will keep you updated as information develops.

The Trump administration has 15 days to comply with the court’s decision.

For more on this story, click here: https://cliniclegal.org/news/injunction-blocking-some-tps-terminations-welcome