Court Overturns Decision Removing Legal Status from 60,000 Immigrants

In a notable ruling on Wednesday, a federal judge in California declared the Trump administration's attempt to end the legal residency protections for approximately 60,000 individuals from Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua as unlawful.

The Department of Homeland Security had previously announced the cessation of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for citizens of these three countries, justified by claims that they had recuperated from prior environmental catastrophes that initially warranted temporary sanctuary in the U.S.

TPS was established in 1990 by the U.S. Congress to provide temporary deportation relief and employment authorization to nationals from countries experiencing severe crises such as conflicts or natural disasters.

Federal Judge Trina Thompson, earlier this year in July, delivered a preliminary judgment against the termination of TPS for the three nations, noting overlooked ongoing challenges and citing racial bias as a motive behind the termination initiative. Despite an appellate pause the following month, halting the initial ruling and permitting the policy revocation, Thompson has now firmly invalidated it.

Thompson asserted that the attempt to strip legal standing from numerous Hondurans, Nepalis, and Nicaraguans lacked lawful basis. She emphasized that the process appeared predetermined and superficial, not reflecting an impartial assessment of country conditions as mandated by legal statutes.

Honduras and Nicaragua received TPS designations following the extensive destruction by Hurricane Mitch in the late 1990s, which claimed countless lives in Central America. The same policy was extended to Nepal after a devastating earthquake in 2015.

The Trump administration pushed to dismantle a majority of TPS programs, suggesting their misuse by previous administrations and arguing that they inadvertently encouraged unauthorized immigration. Efforts to terminate such protections extended to multiple other countries as well.

Reactions to the ruling included statements from legal experts and immigration advocates. Ahilan Arulanantham, a co-director with the UCLA Center for Immigration Law and Policy, remarked that the court's decision reinstates critical legal safeguards for many long-standing, law-abiding residents within these TPS categories.