SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) — A federal judge ruled against the Trump administration’s plans and extended Temporary Protected Status for 60,000 people from Honduras, Nicaragua, and Nepal.
Temporary Protected Status (TPS) prevents deportation of beneficiaries while they are in the United States and allows them to work. The Trump administration had actively sought to end this protection, potentially making more people eligible for deportation.
The Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, can extend TPS to immigrants in the United States if conditions in their home countries are deemed unsafe to return due to natural disasters, political instability, or other dangerous conditions. Noem had decided to terminate protections for tens of thousands of Hondurans and Nicaraguans after determining that conditions in their home countries no longer justified them.
Noem said that the two countries had made “significant progress” in their recovery following the passage of Hurricane Mitch in 1998, one of the deadliest Atlantic storms in history.
The designation for about 7,000 Nepalese was set to expire on August 5, while the protections allowing 51,000 Hondurans and nearly 3,000 Nicaraguans who had been in the United States for more than 25 years were due to expire on September 8.
Federal District Judge Trina L. Thompson, in San Francisco, did not set an expiration date, but instead chose to maintain the protections while the case proceeds. The next hearing is November 18.
In a written order, Thompson said the government ended the migratory 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 face job loss, loss of medical insurance, family separation, and the risk of being deported to other countries where they have no ties, she wrote, adding that ending TPS for Nepalese, Hondurans, and Nicaraguans would cost the economy about $1.4 billion.
“The freedom to live without fear, the opportunity of liberty, and the American dream. That’s all the plaintiffs seek. Instead, they are told to pay for their race, to leave because of their names, and to purify their blood,” Thompson said.
Lawyers for the National TPS Alliance argued that Noem’s decisions were driven by Trump campaign promises and fueled by racial hostility.
Thompson agreed, noting that Noem’s and Trump’s statements perpetuated the “discriminatory belief that certain immigrant populations will replace the white population.”
“Color is neither poison nor a crime,” she wrote.
The activist group that filed the suit said that designated beneficiaries typically have a year to depart the country, but in this case they were given far less time.
“They were given two months to leave the country. It’s terrible,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, during a Tuesday hearing.
Honduras’ Foreign Minister, Javier Bu Soto, said on X that the ruling was good news.
“The decision recognizes that the plaintiffs are seeking to exercise their right to live freely and without fear while the litigation lasts,” Bu Soto wrote. He added that the government would continue supporting Hondurans in the United States through its consular network.
At the November 18 hearing, the Honduran side and the United States government will present their arguments to the judge, who will then issue a permanent ruling on whether to overturn Trump’s decision or uphold it.
“In any case, the losing side will undoubtedly appeal, and the road could be long,” Honduran Deputy Foreign Minister Antonio García told The Associated Press.
The official noted that in 2018, during Trump’s first term, Honduras faced a very similar situation and the legal process took five years, during which TPS remained in place.
With that in mind, he hopes the process will also take a long time this time, to benefit Hondurans living in the United States.
“Today’s news is hopeful and positive… it gives us time and breathing room, hoping the path will be long, and the final word will come from the judge and not from President Trump,” he noted.
Meanwhile in Nicaragua, hundreds of thousands have fled as the government closes thousands of non-governmental organizations and jails political opponents. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and his wife and co-president Rosario Murillo have consolidated total control in Nicaragua since Ortega returned to power two decades ago.
In February, a panel of UN experts warned that the Nicaraguan government had dismantled the last remaining checks and balances and was “systematically pursuing a strategy to cement total control of the country through grave human rights violations.”
The U.S. plan to curb immigration encompasses people who are in the country illegally, but it has also been scrapping protections that have allowed people to live and work in the United States temporarily.
The Trump administration has already ended protections for about 350,000 Venezuelans, 500,000 Haitians, more than 160,000 Ukrainians, and thousands of people from Afghanistan and Cameroon. Some cases are still being processed in federal courts.
The administration argues that Noem has clear authority over the program and that her decisions reflect the administration’s goals in immigration and foreign policy.
“It is not meant to be permanent,” emphasized the Department of Justice attorney William Weiland.
