A US judge has blocked the Trump administration’s decision to strip some 350,000 Haitian immigrants of deportation protections set to expire Tuesday.
In an 83-page ruling, Judge Ana Reyes declared that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem does not have the authority to end the safeguards, known as Temporary Protected Status (TPS).
“Plaintiffs charge that Secretary Noem preordained her termination decision and did so because of hostility to nonwhite immigrants,” Reyes wrote in a scathing ruling. “This seems substantially likely.”
Noem’s actions were “arbitrary and capricious,” the judge determined.
She continued: “Kristi Noem has a First Amendment right to call immigrants killers, leeches, entitlement junkies, and any other inapt name she wants.”
Noem, however, is obligated “to apply faithfully the facts of the law in implementing the TPS program.”
TPS protects its holders from deportation and allows them to work.
It is granted to people deemed to be in danger if they return to their home countries, because of war, natural disaster or other extraordinary circumstances.
The Trump administration has pushed to dismantle the TPS program as part of its broader immigration crackdown.
