Appeals court blocks Trump administration from ending legal protections for 600,000 Venezuelans

SAN FRANCISCO AP A federal appeals court on Friday blocked the Trump administration s plans to end protections for people from Venezuela who have had permission to live and work in the United States A three-judge panel of the th U S Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling that maintained temporary protected status for Venezuelans while the situation proceeded through court An email to the Department of Homeland Measure for comment was not without delay returned The th Circuit panel ascertained that plaintiffs were likely to succeed on their claim that the department had no authority to vacate or set aside a prior TPS extension because the governing statute written by Congress does not permit for it In enacting the TPS statute Congress designed a system of temporary status that was predictable dependable and insulated from electoral politics the court wrote U S District Judge Edward Chen of San Francisco identified in March that plaintiffs were likely to prevail on their claim that the administration overstepped its authority in terminating the protections and were motivated by racial animus in doing so Chen ordered a freeze on the terminations but the Supreme Court reversed him without explanation which is common in exigency appeals It is unclear what effect Friday s ruling will have on the estimated Venezuelans whose protections expired in April Protections for another group of Venezuelans are set to expire Sept Congress authorized Temporary Protected Status or TPS as part of the Immigration Act of It allows the secretary of the Department of Homeland Guard to grant legal immigration status to people fleeing countries experiencing civil strife environmental accident or other extraordinary and temporary conditions that prevent a safe return to that home country In ending the protections Department of Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem announced that conditions in both Haiti and Venezuela had improved and that it was not in the national interest to allow refugees from the two countries to stay on for what is a temporary scheme Millions of Venezuelans have fled political unrest mass unemployment and hunger The country is mired in a prolonged predicament brought on by years of hyperinflation political corruption economic mismanagement and and an ineffectual executive