A federal judge blocked the Trump administration on Friday to revoke the temporary protected status of approximately 5,000 Venezuelans in the United States, despite the decision of the Secretary of National Security Kristi Noem to terminate an extension of the Biden era of the program.
The American district judge Edward E. Chen in San Francisco ruled on Friday that thousands of Venezuelans who received paperwork that extended their protected state for a brief period earlier this year could maintain it. That period began when the then Secretary of Security of Homeland, Alejandro Mayorkas, extended the protected status for Venezuelans in January and ended when Noem finished it in February.
Chen wrote that if his paperwork has his protected state that ends in October 2026, those Venezuelans should not be eligible for deportation while the case is in progress.
The National Alliance of TPS and the Department of National Security did not immediately respond to the request for NBC News comments on Friday’s order.
It is the last decision in a legal saga that could affect around 350,000 Venezuelans who in 2023 were granted the right to live and work temporarily in the United States.
The National Alliance of TPS and seven Venezuelan TPS holders sued the Department of National Security after Noem and the Trump administration stripped Venezuelans of their protected status shortly after the new president was inaugurated.
In the claim, the plaintiffs in the case claimed that Noem’s decision was racially discriminatory and violated legal procedures.
They also cited the decision of Mayorkas in the waning days of the Biden administration to extend the temporary protected status for Venezuelans until October 2026.
After a federal judge who supervises the case blocked President Donald Trump and his administration to finish protected status for Venezuelans while developing the judicial case, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to intervene. And earlier this month, in a two -paragraph order, the tallest court in the United States allowed the Trump Revocar TP administration for Venezuelans despite the current case.
The Trump administration movement to finish the legal status for Venezuelans under TPS occurs in the midst of a broader impulse for mass deportations. From the beginning of the second Trump administration in January, the government has arrested and deported tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants.
And other deportation attempts have also drawn legal challenges, such as Kilmar Abrego García, a Maryland man whom the administration admitted was deported by mistake to El Salvador.
