'Hostility to nonwhite immigrants': Judge scorches Kristi Noem for 'preordained' outcome in order keeping Haitians under temporary protected status

A national justice has indefinitely blocked the Trump administration from terminating impermanent protected presumption (TPS) for hundreds of thousands of Haitians who person been successful the state since 2021.

"During the stay, the Termination shall beryllium null, void, and of nary ineligible effect," U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes, a Joe Biden appointee, writes. "The Termination truthful does not impact the protections and benefits antecedently conferred by the TPS designation, including enactment authorization and extortion from detention and deportation, and the valid play of enactment authorization extends during the stay."

In the underlying litigation, a people of plaintiffs sued implicit "preordained" efforts to extremity TPS. That July 2025 suit was premised connected alleged violations of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and the Fifth Amendment close to adjacent protection.

Meanwhile, two other TPS lawsuits successful two different national tribunal systems had an interaction connected the contiguous litigation successful assorted ways.

By September 2025, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem promised to people a reappraisal of Haiti's TPS successful the Federal Register — fundamentally the government's effect to issues raised successful the different lawsuits. Such work volition often marque bureau enactment formally compliant with important parts of the APA.

In November 2025, Noem's reappraisal was published, giving Haitian TPS an extremity day of Feb. 3, 2026. In December 2025, the plaintiffs filed a question for alleviation pending review, which is much commonly called a §705 question for a stay. By filing a §705 motion, a enactment tin question a discrete benignant of judicial intermission — 1 expressly provided for successful national instrumentality — portion a justice makes a holistic reappraisal of an agency's action.

The enactment question was really the 2nd clip the plaintiffs tried this avenue of redress, having archetypal filed for 1 successful August 2025. After Noem's committedness to travel the APA rules and people the reappraisal successful the Federal Register, however, the tribunal "took the authorities astatine its word" and denied the archetypal petition arsenic moot.

Now, ruling connected the 2nd §705 motion, Reyes recovered Noem's attempts to extremity TPS interruption some the APA and the Fifth Amendment.

"Plaintiffs complaint that Secretary Noem preordained her termination determination and did truthful due to the fact that of hostility to nonwhite immigrants," the tribunal muses. "This seems substantially likely."

The 83-page memorandum opinion begins by contrasting George Washington with Noem — by mode of a quotation showcasing the Founding Father's welcoming sentiment of immigrants.

The opening salvo of the bid reads:

On December 2, 1783, then-Commander-in-Chief George Washington penned: "America is unfastened to person not lone the Opulent & respected Stranger, but the oppressed & persecuted of each Nations & Religions." More than 2 centuries later, Congress reaffirmed President Washington's imaginativeness by establishing the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program. It provides humanitarian alleviation to overseas nationals successful the United States who travel from disaster-stricken countries. It besides brings successful important revenue, with TPS holders generating $5.2 cardinal successful taxes annually.

The justice past quotes Noem's "different take" connected migration by citing a December 2025 post, successful full, from X (formerly Twitter):

I conscionable met with the President.

I americium recommending a afloat question prohibition connected each damn state that's been flooding our federation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies.

Our forefathers built this federation connected blood, sweat, and the unyielding emotion of freedom—not for overseas invaders to slaughter our heroes, suck adust our hard-earned taxation dollars, oregon snatch the benefits owed to AMERICANS.

WE DON'T WANT THEM. NOT ONE.

The judge's sentiment repeatedly refers backmost to Noem's post.

Such verbiage, on with assorted statements by President Donald Trump wherein helium committed to ending TPS for Haitians, the tribunal found, means the extremity effect was "preordained." And a preordained bureau enactment violates the APA, the tribunal found.

Reyes besides determined the determination to extremity TPS for Haitians was "arbitrary and capricious," an APA-sourced word of creation which refers to bureau actions that spell excessively acold portion simultaneously eschewing formal, mandatory processes. Here, the tribunal takes contented with Noem's post-litigation excuse for ending the protections.

To perceive the authorities archer it, Haiti is dilatory being pulled retired of the authorities of chaos, privation, and transgression which primitively prompted the 2021 designation. But, the tribunal recovered that's not adjacent remotely existent — contempt immoderate humble predictions astir accrued economical output successful the improbable lawsuit the governmental and information concern connected the land federation is stabilized and improves.

"An bureau whitethorn trust connected reasoned projections of aboriginal conditions to warrant its actions," the sentiment explains. "But not here. The TPS statute requires periodic review, which focuses the enquiry connected contiguous conditions alternatively than aboriginal change, and Secretary Noem failed to explicate wherefore speculative aboriginal betterment outweighed overwhelming grounds of contiguous danger. Because her mentation runs antagonistic to the grounds earlier her, the Court finds Plaintiffs volition apt amusement that Secretary Noem's determination to terminate Haiti's TPS designation is arbitrary and capricious."

In the last APA investigation section, the tribunal disputes the conception that revoking TPS for Haitians is successful the alleged "national interest." Instead, the tribunal finds that Haitians are an economical nett affirmative by mode of the taxes they wage and for the jobs they hold.

Here, the tribunal powerfully rebukes Noem for ignoring specified data:

[T]he Secretary cannot conscionable propulsion verifiably inapposite oregon mendacious assertion aft inapposite oregon mendacious assertion—no substance however inflammatory—against the partition and anticipation that thing sticks. Nor tin she lawfully neglect to see the precise factors, specified arsenic economical considerations, that she herself has determined are applicable simply due to the fact that they bash not enactment her preferred outcome.

On the Fifth Amendment front, the judge's conclusions are unsparing.

"[T]he Court finds that Plaintiffs are apt to win connected their assertion that anti-black and anti-Haitian animus motivated Secretary Noem's determination to terminate Haiti's TPS designation," the sentiment goes on. "[E]ven if the Court ignored President Trump's statements altogether, Secretary Noem's expressed animus towards nonwhite foreigners would enactment a stay. Taken together, the grounds powerfully suggests that Secretary Noem's determination to terminate Haiti's TPS designation was motivated, astatine slightest successful part, by radical animus."

The sentiment ends by reformulating a cliche:

There is an aged adage among lawyers. If you person the facts connected your side, lb the facts. If you person the instrumentality connected your side, lb the law. If you person neither, lb the table. Secretary Noem, the grounds to-date shows, does not person the facts connected her side—or astatine slightest has ignored them. Does not person the instrumentality connected her side—or astatine slightest has ignored it. Having neither and bringing the adage into the 21st century, she pounds X…

Kristi Noem has a First Amendment close to telephone immigrants killers, leeches, entitlement junkies, and immoderate different inapt sanction she wants. Secretary Noem, however, is constrained by some our Constitution and the APA to use faithfully the facts to the instrumentality successful implementing the TPS program. The grounds to-date shows she has yet to bash that.

The court's bid puts a enactment connected Noem's efforts to portion Haitians of TPS presumption until the litigation concludes, oregon until Reyes rules otherwise.