A federal choose in Brooklyn dominated that Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem didn’t have the authority to chop quick the momentary protected standing of greater than 1 / 4 million Haitian immigrants who’re allowed to remain within the U.S. till February.
Decide Brian Cogan, a George W. Bush appointee, issued his 23-page order Tuesday, ruling that Noem “does not have statutory or inherent authority to partially vacate a country’s TPS designation.”
Cogan’s ruling impacts some 350,000 Haitian immigrants within the TPS program who’ve safety from deportation till Feb. 3 of subsequent 12 months. New York Metropolis has the second-largest Haitian inhabitants in America.
The U.S. first granted Haitian immigrants protected standing after a devastating 2010 earthquake, and has prolonged it a number of occasions, most just lately by a further 18 months in 2024, due to additional pure disasters, together with flooding, a cholera outbreak and one other earthquake in 2021, plus widespread gang violence and political corruption.
“When the government confers a benefit over a fixed period of time, a beneficiary can reasonably expect to receive that benefit at least until the end of that fixed period,” Cogan wrote. “Plaintiffs have enrolled in schools, taken jobs, and begun courses of medical treatment in the United States in reliance on Haiti’s TPS designation lasting until at least Feb. 3, 2026.”
President Donald Trump. (MEHMET ESER/Center East Pictures/AFP through Getty Pictures)
President Trump, who famously repeated the racist lie that Haitian immigrants have been consuming family pets throughout a presidential debate final 12 months, tried to cancel their protected standing in his first time period, as properly, when he additionally reportedly referred to as Haiti and African nations “s—hole countries” and mused in an Oval Workplace assembly that Haitians “all have AIDS.”
“Today’s victory protects approximately 350,000 immigrants from imminent deportation to Haiti — a country where violence and human rights abuse are rampant while food, housing, jobs and medical care are scarce,” mentioned attorneys Andrew Tauber and Geoff Pipoly, who represented a Haitian clergy group, a service staff union and 9 particular person Haitian immigrants. “Today’s victory is a victory for not only our clients, who bravely stood up for what is right, but for the rule of law.”
Noem first introduced in February that she had issued a “partial vacatur,” ending that safety six months early, on Aug. 3. Final week, the Division of Homeland Safety introduced that the U.S. would terminate Haiti’s momentary protected standing efficient Sept. 2.
Decide Brian Cogan through the drug-smuggling trial of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. (Elizabeth Williams through AP)
“District courts have no authority to prohibit the executive branch from enforcing immigration laws or from terminating discretionary temporary benefit programs,” the assertion reads, including that the Trump administration “trusts that this unlawful order will meet the same fate similar injunctions have met in the Supreme Court.”
Cogan said in his ruling that his determination isn’t coated by the latest Supreme Court docket determination limiting district judges’ powers to situation nationwide injunctions. His order is a “set aside,” not an injunction, he mentioned.
“These orders are different in nature from injunctions, which prohibit an agency from taking a certain action at all, ever,” he wrote.
Initially Revealed: July 2, 2025 at 11:58 AM EDT
