Federal District Court Enjoins the Department of Homeland Security from Terminating Temporary Protected Status
Legal Sidebari
Federal District Court Enjoins the Department
of Homeland Security from Terminating
Temporary Protected Status
Updated March 18, 2019
Update: In February 2019, several months after this Sidebar was originally published, a lawsuit was filed
in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, challenging the Department of
Homeland Security’s (DHS) decisions to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designations for Nepal
and Honduras. Like the plaintiffs in Ramos v. Nielsen, the plaintiffs in the new lawsuit (Bhattarai v.
Nielsen) argued that DHS’s decisions to end the TPS designations for Nepal and Honduras inexplicably
departed from the agency’s longstanding policies governing TPS determinations, and that the agency’s
actions were motivated by racial and national origin discrimination. On March 12, 2019, the federal
district court granted the parties’ stipulated request to stay the proceedings pending adjudication of the
Government’s appeal of the court’s preliminary injunction issued in Ramos v. Nielsen. Further, the
Government has agreed not to terminate the TPS designations for Nepal and Honduras pending
resolution of that appeal. Therefore, absent a superseding court order, TPS beneficiaries from Nepal and
Honduras will generally be permitted to remain and work in the United States pending the outcome of
Ramos.
The original post from November 9, 2018, is below.
Certain non-U.S. nationals (aliens) who otherwise might be subject to removal from the United States are
permitted to stay and work here when their countries are designated for Temporary Protected Status
(TPS). TPS is a designation that may be granted by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to
countries experiencing unstable or dangerous conditions due to armed conflict, natural disaster, or other
extraordinary circumstances. In the past year, DHS announced the termination of TPS designations for
Sudan, Nicaragua, Haiti, El Salvador, Nepal and Honduras. The agency’s decisions affect more than
300,000 TPS beneficiaries who may no longer be authorized to remain in the United States upon the
effective termination date of their countries’ TPS designations. Several lawsuits have challenged DHS’s
decisions on various constitutional and statutory grounds. Recently, in Ramos v. Nielsen, a federal district
court issued a preliminary injunction enjoining DHS from terminating the TPS designations for Sudan,
Nicaragua, Haiti, and El Salvador. While the federal government has appealed that decision, TPS
Congressional Research Service
https://crsreports.congress.gov
LSB10215
CRS INSIGHT
Prepared for Members and
Committees of Congress
Congressional Research Service
2
beneficiaries from those countries may remain and work in the United States pending the outcome of the
case.
Background
Under Section 244 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), DHS in consultation with the State
Department may designate a country for TPS if (1) there is an armed conflict that prevents the safe return
of nationals from that country; (2) there has been an environmental disaster in the country that
substantially disrupts living conditions in the area affected; or (3) there are “extraordinary and temporary
conditions” in the foreign country that prevent alien nationals from safely returning. An alien from a
country designated for TPS may be permitted to remain and work in the United States for the period in
which the TPS designation is in effect, even if the alien had not originally entered the United States
lawfully. The initial period of TPS designation may last between 6 and 18 months, and the designation
may be extended thereafter. On the other hand, if the DHS Secretary concludes that the designated
country “no longer continues to meet the conditions for [TPS] designation,” the agency “shall terminate”
the TPS designation. INA Section 244(b)(5) provides that “[t]here is no judicial review of any
determination of the [DHS Secretary] with respect to the designation, or termination or extension of a
designation, of a foreign state. . . .” Upon termination of their respective country’s TPS designation, TPS
beneficiaries will revert to the same immigration status they had before TPS (unless that status had since
expired or been terminated) or to any lawful immigration status they obtained while registered for TPS
relief (as long as the lawful status remains valid on the date a TPS designation terminates). Further
discussion about TPS relief and the TPS designation terminations can be found in this CRS Report and
Legal Sidebar.
From September 2017 through May 2018, DHS successively announced the termination of TPS
designations for Sudan, Nicaragua, Haiti, El Salvador, Nepal, and Honduras. In its Federal Register
notices, the agency declared that the conditions which originally warranted TPS designations for these
countries no longer existed or had substantially improved. The agency, however, granted 12- or 18-month
grace periods for each country before the terminations would become effective.
The District Court’s Decision Granting a Preliminary Injunction
In Ramos v. Nielsen, nine TPS beneficiaries and their five U.S. citizen children (plaintiffs) filed a lawsuit
in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, challenging DHS’s decisions to end TPS
designations for Sudan, Nicaragua, Haiti, and El Salvador. The plaintiffs argued that the agency’s
decisions violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and their constitutional right to equal
protection. The plaintiffs requested the federal district court enjoin DHS “from implementing or enforcing
the decisions to terminate the TPS designations for El Salvador, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Sudan.”
In response, the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a motion to dismiss arguing that INA Section
244(b)(5) precluded the court from reviewing DHS’s TPS terminations. The court denied the motion,
reasoning that INA Section 244(b)(5) did not bar judicial review of the “general policies or practices”
employed in deciding whether to terminate a country’s TPS designation, and that the jurisdictional
provision did not foreclose constitutional challenges to DHS’s TPS decisions.
Subsequently, in October 2018, the court issued a preliminary injunction enjoining DHS from terminating
the TPS designations for Sudan, Nicaragua, Haiti, and El Salvador pending the outcome of the litigation.
In its order, the court determined that the plaintiffs likely would suffer irreparable injury absent a
preliminary injunction given their established ties to the United States and the potentially unsafe
conditions in their home countries, and that a preliminary injunction would serve the public interest. The
court also concluded that the balance of hardships “tips decidedly” in the plaintiffs’ favor because any
Congressional Research Service
3
harm to the government was “strongly outweighed by the harm to [the plaintiffs] and their communities
should a preliminary injunction not issue.”
The court also ruled that the plaintiffs had shown serious questions or a likelihood of success on the
merits of their claims to warrant a preliminary injunction. With respect to their APA claim, the plaintiffs
had argued that DHS adopted a different approach to assessing whether to continue TPS with respect to
Sudan, Nicaragua, Haiti, and El Salvador than it had in the past. Specifically, they claimed that DHS now
only considered whether the original basis for a country’s TPS designation had continued, without
examining more recent events in the country that might warrant a TPS designation. The plaintiffs argued
that DHS’s new practice violated the APA because “it represented a sudden and unexplained departure
from decades of decision-making practices and ordinary procedures.”
The court observed that, under the APA’s “arbitrary and capricious” standard, an agency may not change
its “practices or policies” without providing a reasoned explanation. The court determined that this
requirement applied not only to formal rules or policies, but also to any “shift in agency practice” that is
implied from the agency’s conduct. The court determined that, based on internal emails and other
correspondence, DHS had “made a deliberate choice to base the TPS decision solely on whether the
originating conditions or conditions directly related thereto persisted, regardless of other current
conditions [in the TPS country] no matter how bad, and that this was a clear departure from prior
administration practice.” The court rejected the DOJ’s argument that “variations in how different [DHS]
Secretaries render their fact-intensive TPS determinations do not trigger any APA procedural
requirements,” reasoning that these “variations” amounted to a “change in DHS process and policy.” The
court concluded that, because DHS provided no explanation or justification for this “substantial and
consequential change in practice,” serious questions went to the merits of the plaintiffs’ APA claim and
they were likely to succeed on that claim.
The court also addressed the plaintiffs’ contention that DHS violated their constitutional right to equal
protection because the agency’s decisions to end TPS were allegedly “motivated in significant part by
racial and national-origin animus.” Specifically, the plaintiffs contended that President Trump “along with
other officials in his administration, have repeatedly expressed racially discriminatory and anti-immigrant
sentiments.” The court determined that “a discriminatory purpose was a motivating factor in the decisions
to terminate the TPS designations” based on statements reportedly made by President Trump that, in the
court’s view, “expressed animus against non-white, non-European immigrants.” The court also cited other
evidence suggesting that the DHS Secretary may have been “influenced” by President Trump and
administration officials, and that race may have been a “motivating factor” in the decision to terminate the
four countries’ TPS designations. The court thus decided that the plaintiffs raised serious questions going
to the merits of their equal protection claim.
Notably, the court rejected the DOJ’s argument that, in considering the equal protection claim, the court
should apply the deferential standard employed by the Supreme Court in Trump v. Hawaii. In that case,
the Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of a Presidential Proclamation that barred the entry of
certain nationals of predominantly Muslim countries whose information-sharing procedures were believed
to raise national security risks. The plaintiffs in Trump had argued that the proclamation discriminated
against Muslims, and cited statements made by President Trump to support their claim. Applying a
“rational basis” standard, the Court limited its review of the proclamation to determining whether it was
plausibly related to a legitimate government objective. The Court determined that the proclamation was
expressly grounded in legitimate national security concerns, and rejected the plaintiffs’ constitutional
challenge.
The district court in Ramos declined to apply this deferential standard because the court concluded (1)
there was no indication that DHS’s decisions to terminate the TPS designations rested on national security
or foreign policy grounds; (2) unlike the aliens in Trump v. Hawaii, the TPS beneficiaries are already
Congressional Research Service
4
within the United States and have greater constitutional protections than aliens seeking initial entry; and
(3) the decisions to terminate the TPS designations were not made “pursuant to a very broad grant of
statutory discretion,” as had been the case with the statutory support undergirding the Presidential
Proclamation. Further, the Ramos court ruled that, even if the deferential standard applied, the
“substantial extrinsic evidence” plaintiffs provided still raised serious questions as to whether the TPS
terminations were rationally related to a legitimate, non-discriminatory justification.
Impact of the District Court’s Decision
The TPS designations for Sudan, Nicaragua, Haiti, and El Salvador were scheduled to expire between
November 2018 and September 2019. In light of the district court’s decision in Ramos, DHS may not
terminate those TPS designations while the litigation remains pending in that case. Furthermore, U.S.
Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency component within DHS that adjudicates applications
for immigration-related benefits, has issued a Federal Register notice announcing the extension of TPS
relief and employment authorization for TPS beneficiaries affected by the district court’s order. Therefore,
absent a superseding court order, TPS beneficiaries from Sudan, Nicaragua, Haiti, and El Salvador will
generally be permitted to remain and work in the United States pending the outcome of Ramos. The
district court’s order, however, extends only to TPS beneficiaries from those countries. As discussed
above, DHS has also announced the termination of TPS designations for Nepal and Honduras, and no
court order has been issued to halt those terminations.
In the meantime, the DOJ has appealed the district court’s decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Ninth Circuit. The case renews questions concerning the extent to which courts may review agency action
on matters where Congress generally has entrusted the agency with broad discretion. Although the INA
authorizes DHS to determine whether a country should be designated for TPS, and expressly bars judicial
review of that determination, the district court ruled that it may consider the “general policies or
practices” guiding the agency’s decision, as well as any constitutional challenges to that decision. To the
extent the court has jurisdiction, the district court’s decision also prompts questions as to whether the APA
requires a reasoned explanation for any change in agency practice that may inform the agency’s decision,
or whether there are limits to judicial examination of such changes. Reviewing courts may consider, for
example, whether a DHS Secretary’s manner of assessing the conditions in a TPS-designated country
constitutes an agency policy subject to judicial review, or whether, as the government argued, such
assessments simply reflect “variations in how different [DHS] Secretaries render their fact-intensive TPS
determinations.”
With respect to constitutional claims, the district court’s decision raises a broader question: what types of
immigration decisions are governed by the deferential standard of review adopted by the Supreme Court
in Trump v. Hawaii? While the Trump Court applied this standard in considering the President’s authority
to exclude aliens from the United States, Ramos concerns the government’s authority to terminate benefits
for aliens inside the United States, including some who have lived in the country for many years.
Reviewing courts may consider whether Trump’s deferential standard should only be employed for
agency actions that are rooted in national security concerns or that restrict the entry of aliens into the
United States; or whether, as the government argued in Ramos, that standard should be applied
“expansively” to other decisions that implicate the government’s broad power over immigration—
including the “fact-sensitive” decision whether to designate a country for TPS. Further, Ramos revisits a
question that had been raised, but not definitively answered, in Trump—to what extent may courts probe
beyond the Executive’s official pronouncements to determine whether a decision has a discriminatory
purpose?
While the Ninth Circuit, and perhaps the Supreme Court, may decide some of these questions in
assessing the scope of DHS’s TPS authority, a number of bills have been introduced in
Congress (e.g., H.R.3440, H.R.3647, H.R.6696, H.R.4750, H.R.4956, H.R.1014, H.R.4253,
Congressional Research Service
5
H.R.4184) over the past two years that would allow current TPS beneficiaries to remain in the
United States for certain periods of time, or to adjust to lawful permanent resident status. While
the litigation concerning DHS’s TPS designation terminations continues, Congress may consider
such legislation and other options in the months ahead.
Author Information
<Contact Name>
<Position>
Disclaimer
This document was prepared by the Congressional Research Service (CRS). CRS serves as nonpartisan shared staff
to congressional committees and Members of Congress. It operates solely at the behest of and under the direction of
Congress. Information in a CRS Report should not be relied upon for purposes other than public understanding of
information that has been provided by CRS to Members of Congress in connection with CRS’s institutional role.
CRS Reports, as a work of the United States Government, are not subject to copyright protection in the United
States. Any CRS Report may be reproduced and distributed in its entirety without permission from CRS. However,
as a CRS Report may include copyrighted images or material from a third party, you may need to obtain the
permission of the copyright holder if you wish to copy or otherwise use copyrighted material.
LSB10215 · VERSION 2 · UPDATED