Photo credit: Times Union
A federal judge on Friday blocked the \trump administration from forcing about 3,000 Yemeni refugees to leave the US. The judge ruled that Temporary Protected Status repeatedly granted to them and due to expire Monday should be extended again.
The Associated Press reports that Judge Dale E Ho in Manhattan extended the status temporarily while a lawsuit seeking to preserve the protection plays out. In an emergency order, he wrote that people granted the status are ordinary, law-abiding people who the US government had determined could face threats to their safety if they were returned to a country facing armed conflict.
People with Temporary Protected Status are eligible to remain in the US, will not be removed from the country, and are able to receive work and travel authorization
In his ruling, Ho criticized former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, saying Congress had established a process for Temporary Protected Status to be altered or rescinded, but she had not followed it.
Razeen Zaman, director of immigrant rights at the Asian American Legal Defence and Education Fund, applauded Ho’s ruling, saying that “the court has made clear that humanitarian statutes like TPS cannot be used as a deportation pipeline.”
