Judge slams Noem over termination of temporary legal status for 60,000 immigrants

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at a Nashville press conference on July 18, 2025, to discuss arrests of immigrants during recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement sweeps. (Photo by John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout)

WASHINGTON — A federal judge in California Wednesday found the Trump administration unlawfully terminated temporary protections for more than 60,000 nationals from Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua. 

In a scathing 52-page order, Northern District of California Judge Trina Thompson found that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem did not go through the proper federal procedures to end the designations for Temporary Protected Status for those three nations.

“‘The President is not above the law,’” Thompson, nominated by former President Joe Biden, wrote in her order. “Neither are his cabinet officials. The Administrative Procedures Act ensures government accountability by making agencies transparent, require public participation, setting fair rulemaking standards, and allowing courts to review actions for legality and rationality.”

Thompson found that Noem did not sufficiently review country conditions or provide a minimum six-month winding-down period leading to the end of temporary legal status, a practice that the agency has followed for decades.

“Taken together, the Court finds that the Secretary improperly narrowed the scope of her review of the conditions of the countries at issue in this litigation before making her termination decision,” Thompson said. “The Secretary’s narrowing was based on an erroneous reading of the TPS statute and history of DHS practice.” 

A country receives a TPS designation if it meets certain conditions, such as a major natural disaster, violence, or some other instability that makes a country too dangerous for its citizens’ return. 

About 52,000 TPS recipients hail from Honduras, more than 7,100 are nationals from Nepal and nearly 3,000 TPS holders are from Nicaragua. 

The judge also denied the Department of Justice’s motion to dismiss the case. 

“Our laws should not favor the loud and powerful simply because of their positions. Yet, for too long, our laws have overlooked the quiet truths—truths carried in the margins, truths lived but never spoken aloud,” Thompson said.

“It is the duty of every public servant entrusted with shaping a more just society to bring those truths into the open, to translate lived experience into written protection. It means hearing the faintest whisper of injustice and refusing to let it fade. It means honoring the people who call this country home but have never been invited to speak in it. It means finally ensuring that the law speaks for them,” she continued.

DHS did not immediately respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment.

All three country designations were set to expire by September, but in July, Thompson halted the terminations. In late August, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals allowed the TPS terminations to continue, meaning that work authorizations for those recipients expired.  

Separately, another judge in Boston, Massachusetts temporarily halted the TPS termination for more than 200 nationals from South Sudan on Tuesday, also finding a move by Noem is likely unlawful. TPS for South Sudan is set to expire Jan. 6. 

This year, the Trump administration has aggressively moved to revoke the legal status of TPS recipients, and those with some other form of humanitarian legal status. So far, about 1 million immigrants under TPS, along with another half a million, have lost their status.