A federal district court in California granted a preliminary injunction on Oct. 3, 2018, in Ramos v. Nielsen temporarily halting the termination of Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, for Sudan, Nicaragua, Haiti and El Salvador while the case proceeds on its merits.   

A federal district court in California granted a preliminary injunction on Oct. 3, 2018, in Ramos v. Nielsen temporarily halting the termination of Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, for Sudan, Nicaragua, Haiti and El Salvador while the case proceeds on its merits. One of several lawsuits challenging recent TPS terminations, the case alleges that the Department of Homeland Security’s decisions violated the Administrative Procedures Act, stemmed from racial discrimination, and infringed on the constitutional rights of TPS beneficiaries and their United States citizen children.

On Oct. 11, the government appealed the injunction to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. A briefing schedule has been set with the government’s opening brief due Nov. 8 and the plaintiffs’ reply brief due Dec. 6. 

In the meantime, on Oct. 23, DHS submitted to the district court its proposed plan for ensuring that the more than 300,000 Sudanese, Nicaraguan, Haitian and Salvadoran TPS holders have access to documents proving their lawful status and employment authorization for as long as the injunction remains in effect. Also, that status and employment authorization will be valid for at least the next six months, even if the Ninth Circuit vacates the injunction.

TPS for Sudan was set to terminate on Nov. 2, 2018. TPS for the other three countries was to terminate on Jan. 5, 2019 (for Nicaragua), July 22, 2019 (for Haiti), and Sept. 9, 2019 (for El Salvador). According to the implementation plan, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will issue a Federal Register Notice , or FRN, before Nov. 2, 2018, that will extend TPS status and work authorization for Sudanese and Nicaraguan TPS holders through April 2, 2019. As soon as the FRN is published, CLINIC will provide further guidance to advocates about the steps TPS recipients should take to continue to benefit from the protection of TPS. This and other updates will be posted to our TPS webpage.

Keep in mind that the Ramos v. Nielsen decision does not apply to TPS holders from Nepal or Honduras. There is another lawsuit pending in Massachusetts, Centro Presente v. Trump, that does includes Honduran TPS holders.