On Wednesday, a federal judge in California invalidated the Trump administration's decision to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for around 60,000 immigrants from Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua. The ruling came after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced the termination of TPS for these countries, claiming they had sufficiently recovered from the environmental disasters that initially warranted the protections.

The TPS program, established by Congress in 1990, allows the U.S. government to grant temporary deportation protections and work permits to foreign nationals from countries experiencing armed conflict, environmental disasters, or other emergencies that render return unsafe. The TPS designations for Honduras and Nicaragua were first implemented in the late 1990s following Hurricane Mitch, while Nepal's designation was created in 2015 after a significant earthquake.

U.S. District Court Judge Trina Thompson previously issued a preliminary ruling in July, indicating that the Trump administration had not adequately considered ongoing issues in the three countries and suggested that the decision to terminate TPS was influenced by racial animus. Although an appeals court temporarily allowed the termination to proceed, Thompson's recent summary judgment concluded that the effort to revoke TPS was unlawful. She stated that Noem's actions were predetermined and lacked an objective assessment of the conditions in the affected countries, as required by the TPS statute and the Administrative Procedures Act.

Thompson's ruling is expected to enable TPS holders from Honduras, Nicaragua, and Nepal to continue working legally in the U.S. and protect them from potential detention and deportation. Ahilan Arulanantham, co-director of the UCLA Center for Immigration Law and Policy, emphasized that the decision reinstates protections for long-term residents who have complied with U.S. laws.

The Trump administration has sought to dismantle many TPS programs, arguing that they contribute to illegal immigration and have been improperly extended by previous administrations. Efforts to terminate TPS protections have also targeted immigrants from several other countries, including Afghanistan, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Haiti, Myanmar, Sudan, Syria, and Venezuela.