Lawyers urge Ninth Circuit to restore TPS protections for about 600,000 Venezuelans

Immigrant rights lawyers on Wednesday urged a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Pasadena, Calif., to affirm a district court order that would block the Trump administration from ending Temporary Protected Status for about 600,000 Venezuelans in the United States.

In oral arguments, lawyers for the immigrants said many clients had already lost jobs and businesses as the program was allowed to expire, that hundreds of Venezuelans have been detained and deported, and that parents are being separated from their American-born children. "We absolutely have shown harm in all 50 states," Ahilan T.

Arulanantham, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, told the panel. Sarah Welch, a Justice Department lawyer, urged the court to overturn the district court order, saying the Supreme Court had twice intervened in favor of the administration and had temporarily stayed the district court ruling in October to allow the policy to proceed while lower-court litigation continued.

Ms. Welch said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had followed appropriate legal procedures and acted in the interest of national security. The case, brought by several T.P.S. holders and the National TPS Alliance, also seeks to preserve protections for roughly 330,000 Haitians slated to expire in February and is one of several legal challenges to the administration's efforts to curtail T.P.S.

Key Topics

Politics, Temporary Protected Status, Venezuelans, Ninth Circuit, Kristi Noem, Ahilan Arulanantham