A Venezuelan woman heads to Peru and carries a bag as she walks along the Panamerican highway in … More
A federal court blocked the Trump administration’s decision to end Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelans who faced deportation to an unstable country. The judge ruled that DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s action to vacate an earlier grant of TPS for Venezuelans was likely unlawful. Trump officials justified the policy, but immigration advocates and Latin American specialists disputed the arguments for sending several hundred thousand people to a country with miserable conditions. An analysis showed the court’s action was not surprising. The ruling may help other TPS beneficiaries, including Haitians.
A Quick Immigration Decision To Oust Venezuelans
On January 28, 2025, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem vacated the prior administration’s decision to extend TPS for Venezuela. Shortly after, Noem ended Temporary Protected Status for most Venezuelans in a Federal Register notice.
Individuals with Temporary Protected Status can work and are not removable from the United States. Analysts believe Trump officials hoped ending TPS for Venezuelans would provide easy-to-find people to boost the arrest numbers in the administration’s mass deportation campaign. Noem’s decision removed deportation protections for approximately 350,000 Venezuelans in the United States. However, since the DHS action also affected other Venezuelans (about 250,000) the extension and court decision will permit both groups of beneficiaries from Venezuela to retain TPS through October 2, 2026.
“Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem vacated former Secretary Mayorkas’s (January 10, 2025) decision on TPS for Venezuela on January 28, 2025, only three days after being sworn into office,” according to a National Foundation for American Policy analysis. “That does not appear long enough for a serious analysis of country conditions. In the notice terminating the October 3, 2023, designation of Venezuela for Temporary Protected Status, Noem and DHS implied the Trump administration undertook an extensive review, even though they did not cite a single source on conditions in Venezuela in the Federal Register notice.”
“There is no factual basis to say that Venezuela is in better shape,” said Tamara Taraciuk Broner, an expert on Venezuela expert at the Inter-American Dialogue, after the DHS decision to end TPS for Venezuela. “There is spiraling repression, particularly since the elections, the humanitarian conditions (particularly beyond Caracas) continue to be very dire, and the consequence is that people leave—not because of sanctions, but because of the repressive and corrupt government in power.”
The NFAP analysis noted Noem’s Federal Register notice revoked Mayorkas’s decision on TPS for Venezuela on the questionable legal grounds that a DHS secretary cannot extend TPS if the original designations were made at different times (i.e., in 2021 and 2023). Attorney Ira Kurzban, author of Kurzban’s Immigration Law Sourcebook, called Noem’s argument “frivolous” because Mayorkas had the legal right to extend TPS regardless of when the recipients first received TPS. “Mayorkas had the authority, so revoking it makes no sense and is clearly contrary to the statute.”
The Trump administration’s Federal Register notice published on February 5, 2025, contained several problems. Kurzban believes the Federal Register notice’s claim of “national interest” because members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua entered the country unlawfully is also faulty. He called it “nothing more than a smear campaign against the Venezuelan people.” The gang members are subject to deportation, but Kurzban notes it is improper to terminate TPS for hundreds of thousands of people without any proof they are members of the gang.
The NFAP report noted that the Trump administration ended TPS for Venezuelans without conducting a serious analysis—or, it appears, any analysis—of the country’s economic, public health and human rights conditions. While Kristi Noem did not cite a single source when asserting improvements in Venezuela, two weeks earlier, DHS Secretary Mayorkas concluded conditions in Venezuela warranted continuing TPS and cited 52 sources.
Noem claimed, “[T]here are notable improvements in several areas such as the economy, public health, and crime that allow for these nationals to be safely returned to their home country.” Numerous sources contradict this assertion. (DHS did not respond to a request to provide the sources the department used to identify improvements in Venezuela.)
“[I]ncome levels remain insufficient for most households to purchase basic necessities,” according to the Congressional Research Service in a report updated two weeks before Noem vacated the Mayorkas decision to extend TPS for Venezuelans. “Health risks are increasing in Venezuela amid a humanitarian emergency that has worsened following a disputed election,” reported The Lancet in August 2024. A State Department report published in April 2024 concluded, “There were no significant changes in the human rights situation in Venezuela.” A U.N. human rights report update published in December 2024 cited worsening repression after Nicolás Maduro stole the election and cracked down on the opposition. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called Maduro “a horrible dictator who is instilling all kinds of instability.”
Kristi Noem testifying at her confirmation hearing to become Secretary of Homeland Security on … More
The Judge’s Immigration Decision On TPS
On March 31, 2025, U.S. District Judge Edward M. Chen blocked Kristi Noem’s actions to end TPS for Venezuelans. “The threshold question is whether Secretary Noem lacked the authority to vacate the extension of the 2023 Designation. Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits of this issue,” writes Chen.
Second, the judge ruled that DHS mischaracterized the Mayorkas extension of TPS as “novel.” He writes, “The practical operation of the extension of the 2023 Designation was not ‘novel,’ did not engender undue confusion as to registration and was entirely consistent and compliant with the TPS statute. The Court therefore concludes that Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on their claim that the decision to vacate (assuming the Secretary had implicit authority to vacate) was arbitrary and capricious because it was based on legal (as well as factual) error.”
On the third point raised about Noem’s action, that “the Secretary’s decisions to vacate and terminate TPS for Venezuelans are unconstitutional because they were motivated at least in part by animus based on race, ethnicity or national origin,” the judge also sided with the plaintiffs. “Based on the extensive record provided by Plaintiffs, the Court finds that Plaintiffs have raised a substantial claim of unconstitutional animus.”
The National TPS Alliance brought the lawsuit with the legal assistance of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law, the ACLU Foundation of Northern California, the ACLU Foundation of Southern California and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. CASA and Make the Road New York have also filed a lawsuit.
During Donald Trump’s first term, organizations sued the Trump administration for “political” decisions to end TPS. One case highlighted how U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services sent a decision memo to the DHS secretary explaining why Sudan’s TPS designation should not be terminated because the country “remains unsafe for individuals to return.” However, “Just one week later, USCIS submitted a second decision memo on Sudan reiterating the same country conditions, but this time it recommended termination of TPS,” noted District Judge Morgan Christen in a dissent in Ramos v. Wolf.
Judge Christen noted how Lee Francis Cissna, the nominee to head USCIS, reacted to the memo. Cissna wrote: “This memo reads like one person who strongly supports extending TPS for Sudan wrote everything up to the recommendation section, and then someone who opposes extension snuck up behind the first guy, clubbed him over the head, pushed his senseless body out of the way, and finished the memo.”
Over 7.7 million Venezuelans fled their country because of political repression and the Maduro government’s policies that caused the economy to contract by 80% with rampant inflation. Most Venezuelans have gone to nearby countries, but others came to America seeking refuge. The court ruling means Venezuelans with TPS, at least for now, can continue the lives they rebuilt in the United States.
