Judge Stops Trump from Ending 'Temporary' Amnesty for Haitian Migrants

A district court judge, appointed by former President George W. Bush, has stopped President Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from ending Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for hundreds of thousands of Haitian migrants living in the United States.

Last week, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem announced that the Trump administration would end TPS for Haitian migrants living throughout the U.S., with the designation ending on Aug. 3 and effective on Sept. 2.

The decision came as the federal government has rewarded hundreds of thousands of Haitian migrants with TPS, a quasi-amnesty program, to stay in the U.S. for over a decade.

This week, New York Eastern District Judge Brian M. Cogan ruled that Noem’s move to end TPS for Haitian migrants by September is unlawful and will harm such migrants, requiring the administration to keep the program open until its former end date of Feb. 3.

“Postponement would not harm the public interest,” Cogan writes in his ruling:

Balancing the equities, plaintiffs’ injuries far outweigh any harm to the Government from a postponement. Without a postponement, plaintiffs face the termination of Haiti’s TPS designation on September 2, 2025 and the subsequent loss of their legal right to live and work in the United States, despite this Court’s finding that Secretary Noem’s partial vacatur of Haiti’s TPS designation was unlawful. Other than the Executive Branch’s right to engage in foreign relations activities and enforce the nation’s immigration laws within the bounds Congress has set, which remains intact, the Government identifies no other harms to the public interest, other interested people, or the Government itself that would result from the postponement of Secretary Noem’s partial vacatur. Plaintiffs’ motion for postponement pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 705 is thus granted.
[Emphasis added]

Since the Clinton administration, TPS has been transformed into a de facto amnesty program, as nearly every president has routinely extended and designated new countries for TPS status.

Former President Joe Biden expanded TPS to the highest levels in the program’s history, ensuring that over a million migrants became eligible for the quasi-amnesty.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.