WASHINGTON, D.C. — A panel of appellate judges Wednesday heard a challenge from civil rights groups to the Trump administration’s decision to revoke an extension, as well as end, temporary protections for nearly 1 million immigrants from Haiti and Venezuela.
The challenge comes from the National TPS Alliance, which represents immigrants with Temporary Protected Status because their home country is deemed too dangerous to return to due to violence, war, natural disasters or other instability.
The hearing came two weeks after the U.S. military actions in Venezuela, where the country’s president and his wife were captured and brought to New York City to face an indictment.
Despite the upheaval in the Venezuelan government from the U.S. operation, the Trump administration has continued to move forward with stripping TPS for more than 600,000 Venezuelans.
Before Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem vacated extended protections put in place by the Biden administration, TPS for Venezuelans was set to expire in October. TPS for roughly 330,000 nationals from Haiti is set to expire Feb. 3, which the panel of judges acknowledged could make the issue of TPS for Haiti moot.
Ahilan T. Arulanantham, from the UCLA Center for Immigration Law, who is representing the National TPS Alliance, said there are members in all 50 states who are experiencing harm as a result of their TPS being terminated by the Trump administration.
He said some of those harms include “people separated from their infant children, families deported, people detained, lots of people detained.”
The panel of judges from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Wednesday’s oral arguments are Kim McLane Wardlaw, Salvador Mendoza, Jr. and Anthony D. Johnstone.
Former President Bill Clinton nominated Wardlaw and former President Joe Biden nominated Mendoza and Johnstone.
DOJ says Supreme Court in agreement
Department of Justice attorney Sarah Welch said because the Supreme Court has twice granted the Trump administration’s request to move forward with TPS termination for Venezuelans, the high court must have determined the Trump administration was likely to prevail in court.
A lower court in December found that Noem’s decision to vacate protections for Venezuelans and end their TPS destination was unlawful.
Wardlaw questioned how the Supreme Court’s decision, which was made on an emergency basis and gave no reasoning, impacted the case before the panel.
Welch said the Supreme Court “must have concluded that we were likely to succeed on the merits of that claim, whether or not it provided reasoning published in an opinion.”
Arulanantham said the Supreme Court’s orders regarding TPS for Venezuelans are “not precedent because the Supreme Court does not treat them as precedent.” He added that in the past, the Supreme Court has reversed its initial rulings, especially those made on an emergency basis.
He also pushed back against Welch’s argument that Noem had the statutory authority to vacate an extension granted under TPS for Venezuelans.
“The statute says once you have made an extension, it lasts for the time prior that’s given in the Federal Register notice,” Arulanantham said, referring to the TPS statute.
He added that the authority to vacate a TPS extension that Noem claimed is “nowhere written in the statute.”
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