On Friday, U.S. District Judge Edward Chen (Northern District of California) issued an order blocking the Trump administration from revoking Temporary Protected Status (TPS) from thousands of Venezuelans, this despite the fact that the Supreme Court issued a stay in the case on May 19.
A federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration from revoking the temporary protected status of roughly 5,000 Venezuelans who are in the U.S., despite Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s February decision to terminate a Biden-era extension of the program.
U.S. District Judge Edward E. Chen in San Francisco ruled Friday that thousands of Venezuelans who received paperwork extending their protected status during a brief period earlier this year could keep it. That period began when then-Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas extended protected status for Venezuelans in January and ended when Noem terminated it in February.
Chen wrote that if their paperwork has their protected status ending in October 2026, those Venezuelans should not be eligible for deportation while the case is ongoing.
If you're like me, at first blush, that headline and the above description of Chen's ruling are both puzzling and disturbing. How can/could he do that if the Supreme Court issued a stay in the case?!
Well...there's a bit more to the story, and I'll do my best to clarify what's going on here.
Breaking: SCOTUS Rules Trump Can Revoke Protected Status for Hundreds of Thousands of Venezuelans
First, it may be helpful to lay out the chronology:
Now, here's where things take a slight twist: In that May 19th order, the Supreme Court stayed Chen's March 31 ruling but included the following paragraph/proviso:
This order is without prejudice to any challenge to Secretary Noem's February 3, 2025 vacatur notice insofar as it purports to invalidate EADs, Forms I-797, Notices of Action, and Forms I-94 issued with October 2, 2026 expiration dates. See 8 U. S. C. §1254a(d)(3).
So the Plaintiffs then filed a motion to preserve the status of those who had already been issued paperwork pursuant to the Mayorkas extension. Chen, interpreting the Supreme Court's proviso, concluded that a subset of TPS holders, namely those who had already received TPS-related documentation regarding the extension prior to Noem's revocation of it (and thus had a reasonable reliance interest in it), were entitled to have their status and rights preserved pending resolution of the case on the merits.
The practical effect here is that roughly 5,000 Venezuelans who were in the U.S. and/or working pursuant to TPS designation and who applied to renew their status while the extension was in effect (basically, between January 17, 2025, and February 5, 2025) are permitted to remain in the U.S. and continue working while the case is ongoing. That is, unless the administration appeals Chen's latest order — which it might. (But, frankly, given the proviso in the Supreme Court's order and given the relatively small number of individuals involved, my hunch is that they may let this one go for now.)
Certainly, one can disagree with Judge Chen's rulings here, but this latest one, rather than flouting the Supreme Court order, appears aimed at threading the needle the high court provided in issuing its stay.
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