A Uruguayan-born judge appointed by President Joe Biden has invented a novel excuse to block President Donald Trump from terminating Biden’s award of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to 350,000 illegal-migrant Haitians.
The text of the TPS quasi-amnesty law bars judges’ intervention in TPS decisions by saying “There is no judicial review of any [TPS] determination.”
But Judge Ana Reyes, an immigrant and a Harvard graduate, claims that she is still allowed to review the process of the TPS determination:
the word “any determination” captures all determinations the Secretary may make—whether to expand, designate, or terminate—but it does not capture the process by which she reaches that determination.
Ryes then decided that the administration’s process was illegitimate because skilled U.S.-based Haitians do not want to go home to their island because it is governed badly by the left-behind Haitians, despite a U.N.-funded peace-keeping force.
The decision by pro-migrant Reyes to “stay” Trump’s termination also begins and ends with her political claim that the decision to withdraw TPS is bad economics and bad for foreign migrants.
“This is lawless activism,” responded Tricia McLaughlin, the spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, adding:
Haiti’s TPS was granted following an earthquake that took place over 15 years ago, it was never intended to be a de facto amnesty program, yet that’s how previous administrations have used it for decades.
Temporary means temporary and the final word will not be from an activist judge legislating from the bench.
Trump’s migration counselor, Stephen Miller, slammed her claim, saying, “An unelected judge has just ruled that elections, laws and borders don’t exist.”
Miller has repeatedly argued that Democratic-appointed judges are acting illegally by inventing weak legal arguments against existing laws and the President’s 2024 mandate.
“More judicial tyranny,” he posted in mid-January, 2026. “We are living under judicial tyranny,” he said in August 2025 in response to a prior TPS decision. “Congress by law has reserved these decisions to Article II and stripped Article III courts of jurisdiction,” he said in June 2025. “The judicial coup continues.”
Reyes’ decision will be appealed, and likely rejected by the Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court. But that legal process will suck more energy from the White House’s agencies, consume more of the President’s four-year term, and so may help the 350,000 illegal migrants stay.
Her decision helps cheap-labor employers who would otherwise have to hire American at higher pay, or invest in high-tech machinery to help their existing American workers get more work done each day.
For example, the Mayor of Springfield, Ohio, which got a huge inflow of Bden’s Haitians in 2023 and 2024, celebrated the decision, saying:
This ruling provides clarity and stability for [Haitian] families who are already part of our community. It reflects the reality that many [Haitian] individuals are working, paying taxes, raising families and contributing every day to the life of our City. Maintaining that stability matters because unnecessary disruption creates uncertainty that serves no one. We respect the judicial process and remain committed to the well-being of the people who call our city home.
The lawsuit was backed by FWD.us, which was founded by billionaire investors in 2013 to grow the economy via the inflow of low-wage workers, apartment-sharing renters, and government-funded consumers.
Understandably, the Haitian inflow of illegal migrants is very unpopular among ordinary Springfield residents. They face lower wages, higher housing costs, chaotic diversity in their streets and schools, and unfair, two-tier law enforcement in their city.
The eventual departure of the Haitians will likely free up many jobs for Americans in Springfield, the Springfield News-Sun admitted on Tuesday:
A 41-year-old Haitian man in Springfield told this news outlet he was recently laid off by a local trucking company and he will not be allowed back if he cannot provide updated work authorization verification. Another Haitian individual who has a job at a local warehouse said there will be a lot of unemployed residents if their work permissions are not extended.
In 2024, the city’s residents strongly backed Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, who sharply criticized the Haitian inflow and the TPS award during the election.
But Reyes the liberal judge argued that the people’s views are trumped by business interests:
A stay is in the public interest. Consider the economy first. Haitian TPS holders substantially benefit the U.S. economy, contributing approximately $3.4 billion to it annually … These economic contributions reflect the critical roles that Haitian TPS holders play in workplaces across the country. Employers actively rely on Haitian TPS holders, who are far from expendable.
The Haitians are also profitable for the federal and state governments, Reyes claims:
in 2023, TPS holders from all countries paid $3.1 billion in federal taxes and $2.1 billion in state and local taxes, supporting programs such as Social Security and Medicare.
Most of the Haitian migants are illegals who walked across the U.S. border and then quickly given quasi-legal documents by Biden’s deputies. Ryees accepted the legality of Biden’s pro-migration decisions while she dismisses the legality of Trump’s pro-enforcement decisions as bad for the enforcement of immigration laws:
The Government also invokes the public interest in enforcing immigration laws. But there is no public interest in allowing an unlawful immigration policy to take effect. To the contrary, the public interest is served when agencies comply with statutory and constitutional constraints … In any event, the immigration laws are being properly enforced; Haitian TPS holders are treated as they are—lawful immigrants. Turning them into unlawful immigrants overnight will make enforcing immigration laws more, not less, difficult.
“The balance of equities and public interest favor a stay,” Reyes wrote:
The Government does not cite any reason termination must occur post haste. [DHS] Secretary Noem complains of strains unlawful immigrants place on our immigration-enforcement system. Her answer? Turn 352,959 lawful immigrants into unlawful immigrants overnight. She complains of strains to our economy. Her answer? Turn employed lawful immigrants who contribute billions in taxes into the legally unemployable. She complains of strains to our healthcare system. Her answer? Turn the insured into the uninsured. This approach is many things—in the public interest is not one of them.
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