Overview
- The panel held that the TPS statute allows designations, extensions, or terminations but provides no authority to vacate existing designations.
- Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw wrote that the unlawful moves caused concrete harms, citing deportations, detentions, and losses of jobs and housing for TPS holders.
- Judge Salvador Mendoza Jr. concurred that the record shows ample evidence of racial and national-origin animus underlying the decisions on Venezuela and Haiti.
- Because the Supreme Court previously allowed the Venezuelan termination to take effect, the ruling does not immediately restore protections, and USCIS says 268,156 Venezuelans lost status.
- Parallel cases continue as a Boston judge temporarily delayed DHS’s plan to end TPS for Ethiopians beyond the February 13 effective date and a separate challenge over Haiti faces an imminent deadline, while DHS blasted the decision as judicial overreach.