A federal judge ordered Homeland Security to continue a deportation amnesty for migrants from Honduras, Nicaragua and Nepal, slamming President Trump for complaining that illegal immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country.”
Judge Trina Thompson, a Biden appointee to the court in California, said the department wrongly moved to terminate Temporary Protected Status for the three nations.
Her ruling Thursday means they can remain in the U.S. at least through Nov. 18, and she said she could extend the window further.
Some of them — the migrants from Honduras and Nicaragua — have been living under the temporary protection since the 20th century. Nepal has been under temporary status for a decade.
Judge Thompson said they deserve more time.
“The freedom to live fearlessly, the opportunity of liberty, and the American dream. That is all plaintiffs seek,” she said.
TPS is supposed to be a short-term legal status granted to citizens of countries that suffer natural disasters, face unrest or are touched by war. It gives their home countries a chance to recover and the migrants the right to stay here in the interim.
But in practice it’s become a secondary immigration system, with the Hondurans and Nicaraguans now having lived here more than a quarter of a century, since Hurricane Mitch devastated Central America in 1998.
Nepal was designated in 2015, after a massive earthquake.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said it was time to change things. She said the three nations have all recovered and it is safe to send their citizens back home.
Judge Thompson, though, said that decision was tainted by Ms. Noem’s and Mr. Trump’s “racial animus” toward immigrants as a whole, and TPS holders in particular.
She cited Ms. Noem’s comments about gang members and “poorly vetted migrants” as evidence.
She also cited Mr. Trump’s comments about “poisoning the blood of our country” and his executive order describing the unprecedented border breakdown under President Biden as an “invasion.”
Judge Thompson also delivered a vociferous defense of illegal immigration, saying the migrants in question are building the economy, pumping tax revenue into the government and making communities safer by their presence.
In fact, she said, the communities would become less safe if they were pushed out.
“Termination of TPS would reduce public safety by reducing the amount of individuals, here TPS holders, who would otherwise report a crime or cooperate with law enforcement,” she wrote.
All told, more than 1 million migrants were living under TPS as of December, according to the Congressional Research Service. That included some 53,000 Hondurans, 3,000 Nicaraguans and 7,500 Nepalese.
The total figure stood at about 300,000 at the end of the first Trump administration.
