A US appeals court ruled on Monday that the Trump administration can end humanitarian protections, including temporary legal status that has allowed thousands of people from Sudan, El Salvador, Haiti, and Nicaragua to remain in the US.
The ninth US Circuit Court ended preliminary protections that were stopping the government from ending the temporary protected status from the residents from these four countries. The policy had granted temporary legal status to the people from these countries by natural disasters and civil conflict since 1990.
However, often the legal status is extended, but the incumbent administration of President Donald Trump decided to end it for several countries. Judge Consuelo Callahan wrote in the court’s majority opinion that the decision to extend the TPS begins and ends with the secretary of Homeland Security so long as the statuary criteria are met.
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Furthermore, the decision from judge Ryan Nelson said, “The Secretary’s discretion to make TPS determinations, while not without check, is undoubtedly broad and unique in nature”.
Nelson was appointed by Trump, and former President Bush appointed Callahan. However, since the earlier time of Trump administration, his change of direction on TPS had been on hold, even as the president also moved to restrict all other forms of humanitarian status in the country.
He has taken several measures to curb the asylum applications dramatically and has also sharply limited the number of refugees allowed to resettle in the US. The lawsuit filed in the court had accused that the president’s racially motivated comments and his close aides had motivated the decision to end TPS. It further alleged the current administration of failing to follow the proper procedures to take the step.
In 2017, Trump said that the Nigerians, once seeing America, would never think of going back to their country and that all the recent immigrants from Haiti have AIDS, the ACLU highlighted.
However, in his judgment, Judge Callahan wrote that the decision to end the TPS by the DHS was neither politically motivated nor improper in any form. He further wrote that the court does not condone the disparaging and offensive nature of the President’s remarks.
Callahan’s judgment said that there was a glaring lack of evidence on Trump’s alleged discriminatory remarks intent to TPS terminations and that plaintiffs also failed to present even serious questions on the merit of the decision by the DHS.
However, judge Christian said that the plaintiffs had sufficiently proven that the president’s racial bias impacted the decision to terminate the TPS. Meanwhile, the ACLU decried the ruling, however, the organization also warned that the policy would not come into effect for the next six months. In a tweet, ACLU told the American voters that they can still change the decision.
On the other hand, Trump’s rival in November’s election, Joe Biden has promised to immediately review the termination of TPS if he comes into power. He has also promised to pursue legislation for longtime residents of the US to remain in the country, as well as allowed to seek citizenship.
According to the Congressional Research Service data, as many as 400,000 people in the US have protected status, including 250,000 immigrants from El Salvador.
