A federal judge, appointed by former President Barack Obama, is blocking President Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from ending Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for thousands of Syrian nationals living in the United States.
This week, in a virtual court hearing, United States District Judge Katherine Polk Failla sided with seven Syrian nationals who sought to prevent Trump from ending TPS that was set to go into effect on Friday.
Failla claimed in her decision that the Trump administration did not follow standard procedures when announcing the end of TPS for Syria, also stating that the decision was political.
In September, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem announced that the agency would be terminating TPS for more than 6,000 Syrians living in the U.S. who have no immigration status.
“This is what restoring sanity to America’s immigration system looks like,” DHS’s Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement:
Conditions in Syria no longer prevent their nationals from returning home. Syria has been a hotbed of terrorism and extremism for nearly two decades, and it is contrary to our national interest to allow Syrians to remain in our country. TPS is meant to be temporary. [Emphasis added]
In response, the International Refugee Assistance Project, Muslim Advocates, and Van Der Hout LLP sued the Trump administration to prevent Syrian TPS from being terminated.
TPS was first created under the Immigration Act of 1990 and prevents federal immigration officials from deporting migrants who are designated as experiencing famine, war, or natural disasters.
Since the Clinton administration, TPS has been transformed into a de facto amnesty program, as the Clinton, Bush, Obama, first Trump term, and Biden administrations continuously renewed the program for a variety of countries.
The Trump administration has ended TPS for several countries in the last 10 months.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter here.
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