WASHINGTON — Venezuelans with temporary legal protections have sued the Trump administration over its decision to strip about 350,000 immigrants of their status by April 7.
Temporary Protected Status allows people to legally reside and work in the U.S. if they face conditions that would prevent a safe return to their homelands. The loss of TPS means the Venezuelan immigrants could face deportation.
The complaint was filed Wednesday night in San Francisco with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California by the National TPS Alliance and eight Venezuelans. The lawsuit accuses Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem of illegally revoking an 18-month extension of the protections for Venezuelans that was granted by the Biden administration just before President Biden left office.
An additional 250,000 Venezuelans are expected to lose their protections in September.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs said the Trump administration’s move to rescind the extension is unprecedented; since Congress established the status in 1990, no administration has ended the protections early. The lawsuit argues that the administration violated federal law because the Administrative Procedure Act doesn’t permit early terminations and requires a period of review.
The lawsuit also alleges the termination was motivated by racial animus toward Venezuelans. Jessica Bansal, an attorney with the Los Angeles-based National Day Laborer Organizing Network, pointed to Noem’s appearance on Fox News to explain the termination decision, during which she said: “The people of this country want these dirtbags out. They want their communities to be safe.”
On the campaign trail last year and in office, President Trump has repeatedly characterized immigrants as dangerous and a threat, themes echoed by administration officials.
“All their language has been really loaded,” Bansal said, noting that immigrants secure Temporary Protected Status only after undergoing a vetting process that includes a background check.
“If you look at the case law, that’s the kind of language courts find clearly demonstrates racial animus,” she said.
The plaintiffs are also represented by the ACLU Foundations of Northern and Southern California and the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law.
Hendrina Vivas Castillo, 49, is one of the named plaintiffs. Vivas Castillo, who lives in Culver City, said she entered the U.S. on a tourist visa and decided to stay in part because she knew she would have legal protection under TPS. She now works as a food delivery driver, but her license is set to expire in two months when her protections end.
“My worries started the first moment I found out they were going to revoke our TPS,” she said. “What am I going to do here? I’m hoping this lawsuit can help us Venezuelans.”
Venezuelans are just one group among hundreds of thousands of people who benefited from legal immigration pathways that Trump has blocked off since taking office last month.
“Those three regimes that exist in Nicaragua, Venezuela and Cuba are enemies of humanity, and they have created a migration crisis,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said this month.
Trump ordered a review of all 17 TPS-designated countries, and legal experts say the same justifications for the Venezuela termination could be applied to any other benefiting country.
The move to end TPS protections for some Venezuelans represents a reversal for Trump. Just before leaving office in 2021, he offered certain Venezuelans a similar immigration benefit that protected them from deportation, calling the situation in Venezuela “the worst humanitarian crisis in the Western Hemisphere in recent memory.”
In a Federal Register notice marking the termination, Noem wrote that Venezuela has experienced “notable improvements in several areas such as the economy, public health and crime,” and that Tren de Aragua gang members are among the Venezuelans who have been allowed to enter the U.S.
The termination has caused some division among Republicans. In a letter this month to Noem, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) urged her to “ensure that Venezuelan nationals without criminal records are not forcibly returned to one of the most repressive dictatorships in the world.”
During his first presidency, Trump moved to end TPS for 95% of the people who had it, including those from El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, Sudan, Nepal and Honduras. Those terminations were stalled in court, and when Biden took office he reversed course and expanded protections to include people from additional countries including Venezuela.
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