Donald Trump Suffers Major Legal Blow Over Migrant Protections

Donald Trump suffered a legal setback Thursday after a federal judge ruled against his administration’s efforts to end Temporary Protected Status for tens of thousands of migrants.

The decision extends protections for more than 60,000 people from Central America and Asia, including Nepal, Honduras, and Nicaragua, halting plans to revoke their legal status.

Temporary Protected Status shields certain immigrants in the U.S. from deportation and allows them to work legally if their home countries are deemed unsafe due to disasters or political unrest. The protection can be extended by the Homeland Security secretary.

Kristi Noem moved to end TPS for tens of thousands of Hondurans and Nicaraguans, arguing their home countries were now safe and that they had made “significant progress” in recovering from 1998’s Hurricane Mitch, one of the deadliest Atlantic storms in history.

But U.S. District Judge Trina L. Thompson said the administration ended the migrant status protections without an “objective review of the country conditions” such as political violence in Honduras and the impact of recent hurricanes and storms in Nicaragua.