A federal appeals court ruled late Wednesday that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem acted unlawfully by ending legal protections that allowed hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans to live and work in the United States.
A three-judge panel on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling that she exceeded her authority when she terminated Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Venezuelans under the Biden-era Venezuela TPS designation, The Associated Press reported. All three judges on the panel were nominated by Democratic presidents.
The ruling came as the Trump administration argued that Venezuela’s TPS had a “magnetic effect” on illegal immigration and undermined border enforcement. TPS protects eligible immigrants from deportation and allows them to work legally in the United States if conditions in their home countries are deemed unsafe.
The panel also upheld a lower court’s ruling that Noem exceeded her authority when she prematurely terminated TPS for hundreds of thousands of Haitians.
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A federal appeals court ruled late Wednesday that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem acted unlawfully by ending legal protections that allow hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans to live and work in the United States.
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The judge ruled that TPS legislation passed by Congress did not give the secretary the power to revoke existing TPS designations.
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“The statute contains numerous procedural safeguards to ensure that individuals with TPS enjoy predictability and stability during extraordinary and temporary circumstances in their country,” Ninth Circuit Judge Kim Wardlaw, nominated by President Bill Clinton, wrote for the panel.
Wardlaw said Noem’s “illegal actions have real and significant consequences for Venezuelan Americans and Haitians who rely on TPS.”
“The record is replete with examples of hard-working, contributing members of society — mothers, fathers, wives, husbands and partners who are U.S. citizens, pay taxes, have no criminal records — who were deported or detained after losing TPS,” she wrote.
However, the decision will not have any immediate practical effect after the U.S. Supreme Court in October allowed Noem’s decision to take effect pending a judge’s final decision.
Fox News Digital reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for comment.
Homeland Security terminates Temporary Protected Status for approximately 76,000 Honduran and Nicaraguan immigrants
Venezuelan migrants deported from the United States arrive at Simon Bolivar International Airport in Maiquetia, Venezuela, on February 20, 2025.
According to data shared by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) with Fox News Digital, Noem’s termination means that 268,156 Venezuelan nationals currently in the United States have lost their status and are no longer allowed to live legally in the United States.
The TPS designation expires on September 10, 2025, with termination effective 60 days after publication of the Federal Register notice. The Federal Register notice sets the effective date of the termination as November 7, 2025.
In September, 3,738 pending initial applications and 102,935 pending renewal applications eligible for TPS were also terminated.
“Given Venezuela’s significant role in driving irregular migration and the clear magnet effect of Temporary Protected Status, maintaining or expanding TPS for Venezuelan nationals directly undermines the Trump Administration’s efforts to secure our southern border and effectively manage immigration,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told Fox Digital News in September.
Venezuelan migrants who took off from Guantanamo Bay via Honduras walk up a ladder after arriving on a deportation flight at Simon Bolivar International Airport in Maiquetia, La Guaira state, Venezuela, on February 20, 2025.
“Weighing public safety, national security, immigration considerations, immigration policy, economic considerations and foreign policy, it is clear that allowing Venezuelan nationals to temporarily remain in the United States is not in the best interests of the United States,” the spokesperson added.
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The agency also announced in November that protections for some 353,000 Haitian nationals currently holding TPS would expire in February.
Ninth Circuit Judge Salvador Mendoza, Jr. separately wrote that “there is ample evidence of animus of race and national origin,” reinforcing the lower court’s conclusion that Noem’s decision was “predestined and her reasoning pretextual.”
“It is clear that the Secretary’s removal was not actually based on substantive policy considerations or genuine differences from the previous administration’s TPS process, but was instead rooted in stereotypes of Venezuelan and Haitian immigrants as dangerous criminals or mentally ill,” he wrote.
Fox News’ Preston Mizell and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Original source of the article: Federal Court Rules Noem’s Termination of Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelans in U.S. Illegal
