Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan immigrants will be allowed to remain in the United States without risk of deportation after a federal judge in San Francisco on Monday delayed Trump administration actions rolling back a program known as Temporary Protected Status.
Judge Edward M. Chen found that decisions in February by the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, terminating the initiative for nearly 350,000 people in early April would inflict irreparable harm on families, cost U.S. businesses and industries billions in economic activity and hurt the health and safety of communities across the country. The judge prevented the actions from taking effect as soon as this week while a lawsuit challenging the moves plays out in his court.
The Temporary Protected Status program, passed by Congress and signed into law by President George H.W. Bush, allows migrants from nations that have experienced national disasters, armed conflicts or other extraordinary instability to live and work legally in the United States.
It has been a target of President Trump during both his terms. Most recently, Trump administration officials have sought to end T.P.S. protections for many Venezuelan and Haitian immigrants, as Mr. Trump seeks to make good on a promise to deport millions of immigrants from the United States.
In February, the administration revoked an 18-month extension of T.P.S. protection for Venezuelans that was granted under the Biden administration, and it terminated T.P.S. for Venezuelans who initially registered for the status in 2023. It later partly voided another 18-month extension that the Biden administration had granted to Haitian immigrants.
The actions would have terminated the initiative for nearly 350,000 people in early April, and for hundreds of thousands more later this year.
In a hearing this month, the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the actions — an immigrant advocacy organization and a group of Venezuelan T.P.S. holders — contended that Ms. Noem had violated administrative procedures and acted with racial bias when she moved to reverse extensions of the protections that had been granted under the Biden administration. Federal officials rebutted the allegations of discrimination and said that Ms. Noem had acted within her authority to protect the national interests of the United States.
In his ruling on Monday, Judge Chen said the government had failed “to identify any real countervailing harm” in continuing the program for Venezuelan T.P.S. holders. He said the plaintiffs had also demonstrated they were likely to succeed in showing that the actions taken by the Ms. Noem were “unauthorized by law, arbitrary and capricious, and motivated by unconstitutional animus.”
