Notes

A federal judge late Wednesday blocked the Trump administration’s move to end Temporary Protected Status for more than 300,000 nationals from El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua and Sudan.

The move temporarily halts the administration’s plan to force the beneficiaries — some of whom have lived in the U.S. for decades — to find another immigration status or face deportation.

In a 43-page order, San Francisco-based U.S. District Court Judge Edward Chen concluded the TPS recipients from those countries, along with their children, will “indisputably” suffer irreparable harm and hardship as a result of the decision to sunset their enrollment.

Chen, an appointee of President Barack Obama, wrote that TPS recipients with U.S.-born children could face a difficult choice: Bring their children with them — “tearing them away from the only country and community they have known” — or leave them behind in the U.S.

“The balance of hardships thus tips sharply in favor of TPS beneficiaries and their families,” Chen continued.

TPS allows people to remain in the U.S. and apply for work permits if their home country experiences a natural disaster, armed conflict or other extraordinary event.

However, a country’s designation in the program must be periodically renewed. The Trump administration has taken a hard line on renewals and moved to phase out the status for most beneficiaries.

In addition to the aforementioned countries, the administration has acted to end TPS for people from Honduras and Nepal.

The preliminary injunction won’t immediately affect program enrollees. The first group of people set to lose status is about 1,000 Sudanese, whose enrollment will terminate on Nov. 2.

El Salvador has the most TPS beneficiaries, who aren’t slated to lose the designation until September 2019.

In his order Wednesday, Chen added that the plaintiffs — TPS enrollees and their children — “raised serious questions” about whether the administration's decision to terminate the status was based on racial animus against nonwhite immigrants. The plaintiffs cited numerous actions and statements from President Donald Trump as evidence of bias against Latino and Haitian immigrants.

In addition, Chen said plaintiffs “established without dispute that local and national economies will be hurt if hundreds of thousands of TPS beneficiaries are uprooted and removed.”

Justice Department spokesman Devin O’Malley said in a written statement that the decision “usurps the role of the executive branch” and rejected any contention that the administration acted improperly in the process of phasing out TPS for those countries.