Immigrants sue U.S. in bid to delay end of protections
Immigrant advocates filed a federal lawsuit Monday seeking to block the Trump administration from ending temporary protected status for people who have come to the United States to escape danger in Nepal and Honduras, using the same arguments that led a federal judge to delay the end of similar protections for immigrants from El Salvador, Nicaragua, Haiti and Sudan.
In a class-action lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Northern California, lawyers for about 100,000 Nepali and Honduran immigrants with temporary protected status argued that plans to end the protections were motivated by racial animus, citing a comment President Donald Trump made last year that referred to Haiti and African nations as “s—-hole countries.” Those who have the protection are allowed to live and work in the United States but must seek to renew their status every 18 months.
As with another lawsuit filed in the same court in March, the complaint contends that the Trump administration has moved to end the temporary protections in an effort to purge certain immigrant groups from the country, ignoring the dangerous conditions in their homelands that are forcing thousands to flee.
“The Trump administration came into power with a plan to end TPS,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, who is senior counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union in Southern Caliornia, which is among several groups that filed the lawsuit. “They wanted to end TPS as part of their broader immigration agenda.”
Arulanantham cited administration emails that lawyers say show a bias toward canceling the protections. One such email about Honduras and Nicaragua — which then-acting Department of Homeland Security chief Elaine Duke wrote in 2017 — said the decisions to end the benefits in those countries “will send a clear signal that TPS in general is coming to a close.”
A DHS spokesman declined to comment Monday.
The lawsuit filed Monday aims to shield 15,000 Nepalis, whose protections are set to expire in June, and 85,000 Hondurans, whose protections are set to expire in January.