LOS ANGELES – A federal court of appeals today stayed a lower court’s final ruling in National TPS Alliance v. Noem (NTPSA II) that held the Trump administration’s abrupt termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for more than 60,000 individuals from Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua was unlawful.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit’s summary ruling follows an emergency request from the Trump administration, and leaves thousands of immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for more than two decades at risk of detention and deportation.

“I cannot bear the thought of being separated from my family. I have lived in this country since I was a toddler and I belong here. My child does too,” said Jhony Silva, a plaintiff in the case who is a nursing assistant, student and father. “I am upset that the court is allowing these blatantly illegal government decisions to go into effect. We will not stop fighting for justice.”

“Today’s decision places at immediate risk of deportation thousands of people who have been doing everything they have been asked to do,” said Jose Palma, coordinator of the National TPS Alliance. “With this decision, the government and the legal system are turning their backs on people who have called the US home for decades. These are people who this country recognized as heroes during the COVID pandemic – health care, childcare, and other front-line providers. Congress must now act.”

The plaintiffs are represented by the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), the ACLU Foundations of Northern California and Southern California, the Center for Immigration Law and Policy (CILP) at the UCLA School of Law, and Haitian Bridge Alliance.

“TPS holders deserve better than this,” said Jessica Bansal, an attorney with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. “Today’s decision allows mothers, fathers, students, and workers who have lived lawfully in this country for decades to be stripped of status without even acknowledging the devastation caused to them and their families or the contributions they have made to their communities.”

The three-judge panel declined to consider the harm their decision would inflict on TPS holders, and instead cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s prior shadow docket orders in another case that involves a different group of immigrants from a different country.

“At issue was whether the court should summarily—on an emergency basis—undo a carefully reasoned final decision, which itself was based on a full review of the record,” said Emi MacLean, attorney at the ACLU of Northern California. “The court acted contrary to the law, and this decision will have devastating consequences for tens of thousands of individuals and families.”

The case, filed in July 2025, argued the administration’s decisions to rescind TPS for Honduras, Nicaragua and Nepal violate the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) by disregarding country conditions and instead relying on a predetermined political decision to dismantle the TPS program. The case also argues the decisions were racially motivated in violation of the Fifth Amendment's guarantee of due process. On December 31, in a final decision after a full consideration of the record, the district court had found the Trump administration’s decisions illegal, and temporarily restored protection for TPS holders from Honduras, Nicaragua, and Nepal.

“Every judge to fully consider the Trump administration’s TPS termination decisions on their merits has found them illegal,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, Faculty Co-Director at CILP and counsel for Plaintiffs. “Each additional court decision that permits the government to circumvent the normal appellate process through ‘emergency stays’ does further damage to the rule of law.”

READ THE RULING HERE

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