US judge temporarily blocks lifting of deportation protections for Haiti migrants

3 hours agoNardine SaadGetty ImagesA federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration's attempt to end deportation protections for more than 350,000 Haitian immigrants, who are allowed to live and work in the US legally under Temporary Protected Status (TPS).A day before the TPS was set to lapse, US judge Ana Reyes said the Department of Homeland Security boss doesn't have the facts or law on her side."Plaintiffs charge that Secretary [Kristi] Noem preordained her termination decision and did so because of hostility to nonwhite immigrants. This seems substantially likely," Reyes wrote.The administration has argued that TPS schemes attract illegal immigration and have long been abused and extended by Democrats.TPS prevents US officials from deporting immigrants to countries deemed unsafe whether from natural disasters, armed conflicts or other crises.In a scathing 83-page ruling, Reyes denied the Trump administration's motion to have the lawsuit dismissed, granting the plaintiffs' request for the deportation protection to remain while the case makes its way through the courts. The plaintiffs in the case are five Haitian TPS holders."They are not, it emerges, 'killers, leeches, or entitlement junkies,'" Reyes wrote, quoting missives by Noem. Haiti was designated as eligible for TPS after the Caribbean nation suffered a devastating earthquake in 2010. The status has been extended repeatedly, most recently in 2021 under the Biden administration. The Trump administration has argued that TPS for Haitians has transformed into permanent residency and has become incongruous with Congress' original intention in creating the program. The Trump administration has pushed for the dismantling of most TPS programmes, raising the possibility of deportation for hundreds of thousands of migrants in the US from Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Honduras, Myanmar, Nepal, South Sudan, Syria and Venezuela, among others.Meanwhile, the administration has also moved to end deportation protections for around 2,500, Somalis. Starting 17 March, they will lose their work authorisations and legal status, making them eligible for deportation.