Suit filed over protected status’s end

Immigrants from Honduras and Nepal have filed a lawsuit accusing President Donald Trump’s administration of unfairly ending a program that lets them live and work in the United States.

The lawsuit, filed late Sunday in federal court in San Francisco, claims that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s decision to end so-called temporary protected status for the countries was motivated by racism.

The suit — filed on behalf of six immigrants and two of their American-born children — also accused the department of changing how it evaluates conditions in these countries when determining whether immigrants could return there.

“We bring evidence the Trump administration has repeatedly denigrated non-white non-European immigrants and reviewed TPS designations with a goal of removing such non-white non-European immigrants from the United States,” said Minju Cho, a staff attorney at Asian Americans Advancing Justice in Los Angeles.

The group is one of several representing the immigrant plaintiffs, who live California, Minnesota, Maryland, Virginia and Connecticut.

A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security didn’t return a message asking for comment.