Federal judge signals ‘likelihood of injury' as Venezuelan TPS deadline looms

Yahoo

25-03-2025

A federal judge said after a hearing Monday that he will determine whether he has the authority to decide a case in which hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans are at risk of losing deportation protections in less than two weeks.
The Trump administration has revoked an extension of Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelans that was granted by former Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Jan. 17, days before President Trump took office. The Trump administration has rolled back the extension, which would have lasted until October 2026. If the revocation remains in place, it would mean many of the 350,000 Venezuelans who benefit from the status would, as of April 2, lose their ability to work and would be deportable.
The lawsuit was filed in San Francisco by seven Venezuelan nationals who argue that the Trump administration's decision is not only unlawful but politically motivated and racially biased. Along with the National TPS Alliance, the Venezuelans are calling for the reinstatement of the 18-month TPS extension the Venezuelans at risk of losing their protections in April as well as an additional 257,000 who would lose theirs in September.
U.S. District Judge Edward M. Chen, who is overseeing the case, is the same judge who, in October 2018, issued a preliminary injunction blocking the first Trump administration's attempt to end the TPS program for immigrants from El Salvador, Nicaragua, Haiti and Sudan. Nearly two years after his initial ruling, a federal appeals court overturned the injunction, though it remained in effect until February 2024, when the judge granted the Biden administration's motion to dismiss the case.
U.S. government attorneys argued Monday that Chen lacks jurisdiction to block the administration's revocation of TPS. The lawyers argued that Congress has granted the secretary of Homeland Security the authority to review TPS decisions. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem made the decision to revoke the TPS extension.
Venezuela was first designated for TPS in March 2021, allowing over 350,000 individuals to apply for protections. The designation was expanded in 2023 to include an additional 257,000 Venezuelans. This move was widely celebrated in South Florida, home to one of the largest Venezuelan communities in the U.S..
During Monday's hearing, the government did not contest the evidence presented by the Venezuelans who sued regarding the negative economic and workforce impact if Venezuelan TPS holders are forced to leave the country.
'It seems to me that the record shows a likelihood of injury in the absence of relief, at least based on the current record,' the judge said. 'While new evidence may emerge at trial, for now this element appears to be undisputed.'
The judge asked Justice Department attorney Sarah L. Vuong what hardships the government would suffer if the decision to end TPS were postponed.
'The harms to the government are that the secretary has looked at the issue, has made a determination related to the national interest, and the secretary has an interest in having her orders carried out,' Vuong said, adding that Noem determined it is safe for the TPS holders to return to Venezuela.
Ahilan Arulanantham, an attorney with the UCLA Center for Immigration Law and Policy, argued that the administration has not taken the time to properly evaluate conditions in Venezuela to determine whether it is safe for its nationals to return, and added that during such a review some of the Venezuelans with TPS might have the time to obtain some other immigration status to remain in the U.S.
The lawsuit, filed by the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at UCLA School of Law, the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, argues that Venezuelan TPS recipients contribute approximately $3.5 billion annually to the U.S. economy and pay over $400 million in Social Security taxes.
The attorneys also said that 76% of Venezuelan immigrants are employed, many in critical sectors such as transportation, construction, and natural resources, and that 48% of Venezuelan immigrants have attained at least a bachelor's degree, positioning them as key contributors across various industries.
'We are asking the court to stop the federal government from stripping TPS protections from 600,000 Venezuelans because the government's actions clearly violate the TPS statute and are motivated by racism, violating the Fifth Amendment,' Arulanantham said in a statement. 'This administration cannot simply ignore the law when it doesn't like it.'
Erik Crew, an attorney with the Haitian Bridge Alliance who is part of the legal team representing the group that filed the lawsuit, said they 'deserve to know that the humanitarian protection granted to them will not be stripped away in a matter of days.'
Several lawsuits are currently pending in federal courts challenging the rollback of TPS for Venezuelans and Haitians. Other lawsuits are challenging the revocation of a Biden-ear humanitarian parole program for over half a million Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan migrants.
An ongoing lawsuit in federal court in Washington, D.C., is challenging last week's deportation of Venezuelan men to a mega-prison in El Salvador. The administration has claimed a wartime authority to deport the men, claiming they are members of the feared Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, but the lawsuit says the men were never given an opportunity in court to show they were not gang members.
One of the plaintiffs in the San Francisco case, Cecilia González Herrera, 26, who fled the Nicolás Maduro regime in Venezuela and arrived in the U.S. eight years ago with her family, said in a press conference that she and other Venezuelans will not stand by as the protections 'are dismantled.'
González Herrera, who lives in Kissimmee, is a TPS holder, along with her family, and has sought political asylum. Currently studying Political Science and Latin American Studies at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, González Herrera said she feels a responsibility as a human-rights activist to fight for herself and her community.
'This fight is about justice — about preserving a program that has saved lives and created opportunities for so many,' she said. 'As Venezuelan TPS recipients, we refuse to be silent. We have already fled once, and now we are choosing to fight — not just for our families, but for the hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan TPS recipients who deserve to live without fear.'