Lawsuit Aims To Block Rollback of Temporary Protected Status Extension for Migrants

Civil rights groups are challenging the Trump administration’s reversal of protected status for Haitian and Venezuelan immigrants with a new lawsuit.

Quick Takes

Lawyers for Civil Rights filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration for removing the extension of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for immigrants from Haiti and Venezuela.
The suit argues DHS Secretary Kristi Noem lacks the statutory authority to rescind previously granted TPS extensions.
The Trump administration accelerated expiration dates to August 2025 for Haiti and April 2025 for Venezuela, rolling back Biden-era extensions.
The lawsuit is filed on behalf of advocacy organizations and affected individuals who have established lives, jobs, and families in the U.S.
The Trump administration argues that the program has been abused for years and that the Biden administration extended it longer than necessary.

Legal Battle Over Immigration Protections

A Boston-based civil rights advocacy organization, Lawyers for Civil Rights, has launched a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration over its decision to remove the Biden administration’s Temporary Protected Status extension for Haitian and Venezuelan immigrants. The suit directly challenges Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s authority to cancel TPS extensions that were previously granted under the Biden administration. The complaint argues this legal action could affect hundreds of thousands of immigrants who have been legally residing and working in the United States, many for years or even decades, who now face potential deportation to countries experiencing severe political instability.

The lawsuit represents three immigrant advocacy organizations—Haitians Americans United, the Venezuelan Association of Massachusetts, and UndocuBlack Network—along with four individuals directly affected by the policy change. TPS provides a humanitarian pathway for immigrants from designated countries to legally remain in the U.S. when conditions in their home countries are deemed unsafe due to natural disasters, armed conflict, or other extraordinary circumstances. Under President Joe Biden, these protections had been extended until 2026, but the Trump administration is now moving to terminate them much earlier—with Haiti protections now ending in August 2025 and Venezuela protections ending as early as April.

President Donald Trump’s administration has illegally ended protection against deportation for nationals of Haiti and Venezuela, according to a new lawsuit. pic.twitter.com/9H1ANEedeu

— The Epoch Times (@EpochTimes) March 4, 2025

The Central Argument

At the core of the legal argument is whether the DHS Secretary has the authority to rescind TPS extensions after they’ve been granted. According to the complaint filed in court, “The TPS statute does not authorize the Secretary to pull the rug out from under vulnerable TPS recipients and rescind an extension that has already been granted; she simply has no statutory authority to do so.” This legal challenge marks the first direct confrontation over the recent cancellation of TPS protections for Haiti, though the Trump administration previously attempted to end Haiti’s TPS designation in 2018, an effort that was blocked by federal courts.

The Department of Homeland Security, on the other hand, has argued the TPS program has been abused and needs to be returned to its original intention as a temporary measure. A February 20 statement announcing plans to end protections for Haitians said the move is “part of President Trump’s promise to rescind policies that were magnets for illegal immigration and inconsistent with the law.” The statement said that the program has been “exploited and abused” for many years, with an official adding that the Biden administration attempted to extend it significantly longer than necessary.

As the legal battle unfolds, the case highlights fundamental questions about executive authority in immigration policy, the nature of humanitarian protections, and the balance between national sovereignty and human rights considerations.