The decision by a three-judge panel affects immigrants from Nepal, Honduras, and Nicaragua living in the United States under temporary protected status.
The Trump administration can move forward with ending Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for immigrants from Nepal, Honduras, and Nicaragua, a U.S. appeals court ruled Monday.
It was a unanimous decision by a three-judge panel, ruling to temporarily lift a previous federal judge’s ruling that blocked the termination of the status for immigrants of the three countries and accused the federal government of possibly being racially motivated in its actions.
There are nearly 89,000 immigrants from Nepal, Honduras, and Nicaragua who have been granted temporary status to live in the United States.
“TPS was never designed to be permanent, yet previous administrations have used it as a de facto amnesty program for decades,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a Feb. 9 post on X.
U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson in California blocked Noem’s attempt to end TPS for nationals of the three countries in December, citing comments about immigrants from the Homeland Security secretary and President Donald Trump as her reasoning.
The judge also said the Trump administration did not consider the conditions of the nations that might prevent immigrants from returning.
The Ninth U.S. Court of Appeals in California on Monday paused Thompson’s ruling for the duration of the appeal, stating the federal government could likely prove there are legitimate reasons to terminate Nepali, Honduran, and Nicaraguan protection.
“A win for the rule of law and vindication for the U.S. Constitution. Under the previous administration, Temporary Protected Status was abused to allow violent terrorists, criminals, and national security threats into our nation,” Noem said.
In contrast to the previous federal judge ruling to block the terminations, the appeals court found the federal government could likely prove that Noem did consider the conditions of Nepal, Honduras, and Nicaragua before ending the roughly 89,000 immigrants’ protected status.
The TPS statute allows the secretary of Homeland Security to declare a foreign state for protected status when “nationals of that state cannot return there safely due to armed conflict, natural disaster, or other ‘extraordinary and temporary conditions,’” the appeals court wrote Monday.
By Troy Myers
