A federal appeals court in California has ruled that Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, exceeded her authority when she sought to end temporary immigration protections that had allowed hundreds of thousands of people, many of them Venezuelans, to legally live and work in the United States.
In a ruling issued late Wednesday, the three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, affirmed a lower court order blocking the administration from ending the program, known as Temporary Protected Status, or T.P.S.
The decision, which called the federal government’s actions “unlawful,” is a favorable development for T.P.S. holders fighting to preserve the program, but the ruling doesn’t immediately restore their protected status. That’s because the Supreme Court had already put the lower court’s decision on hold but permitted it to be appealed to the Ninth Circuit.
Now, the federal government could ask the full Ninth Circuit to rehear the case or it could appeal to the Supreme Court.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, denounced the decision.
“Temporary means temporary, and this is yet another lawless and activist order from the federal judiciary who continues to undermine our immigration laws,” she said in a statement.
The Trump administration is a year into a campaign to deport millions of people, and in moving to end T.P.S. for many foreign nationals, the Department of Homeland Security has been expanding the pool of people who could be expelled from the United States.
But the efforts to end T.P.S., which benefits people from some of the world’s most troubled nations, has prompted a wave of legal challenges, including the case decided this week by the Ninth Circuit and another, in Washington, D.C., that is expected to be ruled on any day.
In the Ninth Circuit ruling, Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw said Ms. Noem’s actions had caused many immigrants across the country to lose their jobs and homes, and that those harmed spanned “physicians, artists, automotive mechanics, food service employees, construction workers, students, and thousands of others who ‘didn’t come [to the United States] for hand-outs,’ but ‘to work hard.’”
“The record is replete with examples of hard-working, contributing members of society — who are mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, and partners of U.S. citizens, pay taxes, and have no criminal records — who have been deported or detained after losing their TPS,” the ruling stated, adding that other T.P.S. holders had “no ability to provide for their families.”
In a concurring opinion, Judge Salvador Mendoza Jr. said he wanted to underscore “the ample evidence of racial and national origin animus” that had underpinned Ms. Noem’s actions in ending the protections. He said the record was replete with direct statements from Ms. Noem and President Trump expressing hostility toward Haitian and Venezuelan T.P.S. holders.
“And these were not generalized statements about immigration policy toward Venezuela and Haiti or national security concerns to which the Executive is owed deference,” Mr. Mendoza Jr. wrote. “Instead, these statements were overtly founded on racist stereotyping based on country of origin.”
For decades, the T.P.S. program has allowed foreign nationals to stay in the U.S. for about 18 months when a crisis such as an earthquake or armed conflict would make returning to their home countries unsafe. Afghanistan, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua and Venezuela are among the nation’s for which the Trump administration has sought to end T.P.S.
With its ruling in October, the Supreme Court immediately ended the protections for 350,000 Venezuelans who had arrived in 2023, leaving them at risk of deportation. The program expired on Nov. 7 for an additional 250,000 Venezuelans who arrived in 2021.
Ahilan T. Arulanantham, a lawyer for the T.P.S. holders, faulted the Supreme Court for having stayed the lower court order and leaving hundreds of thousands of people in limbo. “Because of the Supreme Court’s earlier action, today’s decision does not immediately change anything on the ground,” he said.
The program will expire for about 330,000 Haitians next month. Ms. Noem actions to end that protection is the subject of the Washington, D.C., case that is expected to be decided in the coming days.
Jazmine Ulloa is a national reporter covering immigration for The Times.
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