A federal judge delivered a withering rebuke to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Monday, accusing her of harboring a “hostility to nonwhite immigrants,” and blocking her decision to end a deportation amnesty for hundreds of thousands of Haitian migrants.
Judge Ana Reyes, a Biden appointee to the federal district court in Washington, said Ms. Noem slandered the Haitians by suggesting they were “killers, leeches and entitlement junkies.”
Instead, she pointed to a neuroscientist, a software engineer, a college student and a registered nurse as the people Ms. Noem’s decision affected.
Judge Reyes also said it was startling that Ms. Noem would say Haiti is safe enough for its citizens to return to, when the State Department still has it listed as a no-go country for Americans, warning, “Do not travel to Haiti for any reason.”
“Secretary Noem complains of strains unlawful immigrants place on our immigration-enforcement system. Her answer? Turn 352,959 lawful immigrants into unlawful immigrants overnight. She complains of strains to our economy. Her answer? Turn employed lawful immigrants who contribute billions in taxes into the legally unemployable,” Judge Reyes wrote in a weighty 83-page ruling.
“This approach is many things — in the public interest is not one of them,” she added.
At issue is what’s known as Temporary Protected Status, a form of deportation amnesty.
TPS is supposed to be granted on a short-term basis for citizens of countries struck by natural disasters, riven by war or political unrest or facing an epidemic.
Haiti was first granted TPS in 2010 by the Obama administration and it was expanded under President Biden, to the point that about 353,000 Haitians are currently living here under its protections.
TPS grants them an 18-month stay of deportation and a work permit to compete with Americans for jobs. Permits can be renewed as long as DHS keeps renewing TPS designation for the relevant country.
The Biden administration vastly expanded the universe of TPS, going from about 400,000 in mid-2020 to nearly 1.3 million people by last March.
Ms. Noem has been on a mission to rein in TPS grants, canceling the biggest ones for Venezuela and Haiti, as well as smaller ones such as South Sudan, with about 200 beneficiaries.
Judges have stepped in to try to block Ms. Noem on nearly every front, often citing “animus” on the part of Ms. Noem or President Trump as poisoning the decision-making.
The Supreme Court has been more permissive, twice ruling to allow the Venezuela termination to go forward.
But Judge Reyes on Monday said the high court’s action was too inscrutable for her to take any guidance, and she said she was on solid ground ruling against Ms. Noem.
She seemed to have it in for Ms. Noem, decrying the secretary’s use of social media to offer thoughts about the state of immigration and calling it a bad substitute for the kind of decision-making Judge Reyes said the law required when it came to TPS.
“Kristi Noem has a First Amendment right to call immigrants killers, leeches, entitlement junkies, and any other inapt name she wants. Secretary Noem, however, is constrained by both our Constitution and the APA to apply faithfully the facts to the law in implementing the TPS program. The record to-date shows she has yet to do that,” the judge wrote.
Her decision was praised by immigrant rights groups.
“Our Haitian neighbors are vital to the social and economic fabric of America and New York – they are essential workers, caregivers, healthcare workers, business owners, and so much more,” said Murad Awawdeh, president of the New York Immigration Coalition.
