Trump administration officials asked the United States Supreme Court to pause federal Judge Edward Chen’s order stating that it broke the law by taking away temporary protections for Venezuelan immigrants. Chen, earlier this month, said Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem did not follow the law when she ended the immigrants’ Temporary Protected Status, calling the move “arbitrary and capricious.”
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The Washington Post reported that the Department of Justice asked the Supreme Court to put a hold on a part of the order about Venezuelans as federal officials appeal the case. The administration said this would affect more than 300,000 people. While the case also touches on Temporary Protected Status for Haitians, that is going to expire within months so the DOJ did not ask about that section of the order.
In Chen’s ruling, he mentioned a May Supreme Court order that allowed federal officials to eliminate the temporary protections for the Venezuelans, the Post said. Chen wrote that order only concerned the “preliminary relief ordered by this Court in postponing agency action,” and that did not stop him from “from adjudicating the case on the merits.”
The Justice Department, meanwhile, argued in its petition to the Supreme Court Friday that Chen’s actions are an “example of the increasingly familiar and untenable phenomenon of lower courts disregarding this Court’s orders on the emergency docket.”
“So long as the district court’s order is in effect, the Secretary must permit over 300,000 Venezuelan nationals to remain in the country, notwithstanding her reasoned determination that doing so even temporarily is ‘contrary to the national interest,’” the Justice Department wrote.
What is Temporary Protected Status?
Temporary Protected Status is a program meant to assist those who come from countries deemed to be in crisis. The Homeland Security Secretary can designate a place for TPS over “conditions in the country that temporarily prevent the country’s nationals from returning safely, or in certain circumstances, where the country is unable to handle the return of its nationals adequately.”
After she became part of the Trump administration in January, Noem attempted to remove TPS protections for Venezuelans and Haitians, which were put in place by former DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who served under the Biden administration.
A group called the National TPS Alliance and 11 individuals sued the federal government. A federal court temporarily blocked Noem’s decision on the basis that it may have been racially biased and likely violated the law.
Then, in April, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the federal government’s request to pause the lower court’s ruling blocking the removal of these protections. When the government asked the Supreme Court for an emergency pause to the lower court’s order in May, the Supreme Court allowed it. Chen, in his September ruling, ordered the Trump administration to comply with his ruling that they reinstate TPS.
