By Daniel Wiessner
(Reuters) -A federal judge on Wednesday blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from terminating temporary deportation protections and work permits for more than 6,100 Syrians while a legal challenge proceeds.
U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla in Manhattan said the abrupt elimination of temporary protected status for Syrians was likely illegal, agreeing with seven Syrian migrants who had sought to block the policy from taking effect on Friday.
Failla said during a virtual court appearance that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security had not followed proper procedures for revoking temporary status, including reviewing conditions in Syria, and that the decision was improperly influenced by politics.
The Trump administration has terminated temporary protected status for hundreds of thousands of migrants from several countries in a matter of months, suggesting it is not giving careful consideration in each case as required by federal law, said Failla, an appointee of Democratic former President Barack Obama.
TEMPORARY PROTECTION FIRST EXTENDED TO SYRIANS IN 2012
The Trump administration will likely appeal the decision.
Temporary protected status, or TPS, is a humanitarian designation under U.S. law for migrants from countries stricken by war, natural disaster, or other catastrophes, shielding recipients from deportation and allowing them to work in the United States.
TPS was first extended to Syrian citizens in 2012 during Obama’s administration, after the country plunged into a civil war that culminated last year with the toppling of President Bashar al-Assad.
The U.S. Supreme Court last month cleared the way for the Trump administration to revoke temporary status for 600,000 Venezuelan migrants. Other judges are considering challenges to the termination of TPS for people from Haiti, Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua.
The administration has said the program has been overused and that many migrants no longer merit protection. Democrats and advocates for the migrants have said that TPS enrollees could be forced to return to dangerous conditions and that U.S. employers depend on their labor.
In announcing the elimination of TPS for Syrians, the Department of Homeland Security said Syria was a hotbed of terrorism and extremism and that it was contrary to U.S. interests to continue the program.
(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi, Nia Williams, Rod Nickel)
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