A federal appeals court ruled late Wednesday that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem acted illegally when she ended legal protections that allowed hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans to live and work in the United States.
The decision by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling that found she overstepped her authority when she ended temporary protected status (TPS) for Venezuelans under Biden-era TPS designations from Venezuela, according to The Associated Press. All three judges on the panel were appointed by Democratic presidents.
The ruling comes as the Trump administration has argued that TPS for Venezuela has created a “magnet effect” for illegal migration and undermined border enforcement. TPS protects eligible migrants from deportation and allows them to work legally in the United States while conditions in their home country are considered unsafe.
The panel also upheld the lower court’s finding that Noem exceeded his authority when he decided to end TPS early for hundreds of thousands of Haitians.
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A federal appeals court ruled late Wednesday that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem acted illegally when she ended legal protections that allowed hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans to live and work in the United States.
(Getty Images)
The justices ruled that the TPS legislation passed by Congress did not give the secretary the power to rescind an existing TPS designation.
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“The statute contains numerous procedural safeguards that ensure that TPS individuals enjoy predictability and stability during times of extraordinary and temporary conditions in their country of origin,” Ninth Circuit Judge Kim Wardlaw, who was nominated by President Bill Clinton, wrote for the panel.
Wardlaw said Noem’s “unlawful actions have had real and significant consequences” for Venezuelans and Haitians in the United States who rely on TPS.
“The document is replete with examples of hard-working, contributing members of society — who are mothers, fathers, spouses and partners of American citizens, pay taxes, and have no criminal records — who have been deported or detained after losing TPS,” she wrote.
The decision, however, will have no immediate practical effect after the US Supreme Court in October allowed Noem’s ruling to take effect pending a final decision by the justices.
Fox News Digital has reached out to DHS for comment.
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Venezuelan migrants deported from the United States arrive at Simon Bolivar International Airport in Maiquetia, Venezuela on February 20, 2025.
Noem’s termination meant that 268,156 Venezuelan citizens currently in the US lost their status and were no longer allowed to legally live in the United States, according to figures provided to Fox News Digital by US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
The TPS designation expired on September 10, 2025, with effective termination 60 days after publication of the Federal Register notice. The Federal Register notice set the effective date of the termination at November 7, 2025.
In September, 3,738 pending initial applications that would have been eligible for TPS and 102,935 pending renewal applications were also closed.
“Given Venezuela’s substantial role in fueling irregular migration and the clear magnet effect created by Temporary Protected Status, maintaining or expanding TPS for Venezuelan nationals directly undermines the Trump administration’s efforts to secure our southern border and effectively manage migration,” a DHS spokesperson told Fox News Digital in September.
Venezuelan migrants who flew from Guantánamo Bay via Honduras climb a ladder after arriving on a deportation flight at the Simon Bolivar International Airport in Maiquetia, La Guaira state, Venezuela, February 20, 2025.
“Weighing public safety, national security, migration factors, immigration policy, economic considerations, and foreign policy, it is clear that allowing Venezuelan citizens to remain temporarily in the United States is not in America’s best interest,” the spokesman added.
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The agency also announced in November that about 353,000 Haitian nationals currently holding TPS will see their protection expire in February.
Ninth Circuit Judge Salvador Mendoza, Jr. wrote separately that there was “ample evidence of racial and national animus” that strengthened the lower court’s conclusion that Noem’s decisions were “preordained and her reasoning pretextual.”
“It is clear that the Secretary’s vacatur actions were not actually based on substantive policy considerations or real differences with the previous administration’s TPS procedures, but were rooted in a diagnosis based on the stereotype of Venezuelan and Haitian immigrants as dangerous criminals or mentally ill,” he wrote.
Fox News’ Preston Mizell and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Source of the original article: Federal court rules that Noem’s termination of temporary protected status for Venezuelans in the US was illegal