The Trump administration’s termination of humanitarian protections for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan and Haitian immigrants violated the Immigration and Nationality Act, a federal appeals court found.

A plain reading of the statute doesn’t allow for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to vacate protections issued by the Biden administration, a three-judge panel found Wednesday.

The ruling from the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is the first time a circuit court has weighed in on the substance of legal battles over the administration’s efforts to dismantle Temporary Protected Status.

The TPS program allows immigrants to remain in the US and work legally when their home countries are deemed too dangerous for safe returns. Dismantling those protections has been a key element of the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign targeting Venezuelans and Haitians among other immigrants with humanitarian status.

“The Secretary’s actions fundamentally contradict Congress’s statutory design, and her assertion of a raw, unchecked power to vacate a country’s TPS is irreconcilable with the plain language of the statute,” Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw, a Bill Clinton appointee, wrote for the panel in a January 28 opinion.

The case was also heard by Judges Anthony Johnstone and Salvador Mendoza Jr., both Biden appointees.

The order affirms a September lower court ruling that found the Department of Homeland Security illegally stripped Venezuelans and Haitians of TPS in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.

After appealing that ruling, the Trump administration secured an emergency order from the US Supreme Court allowing it to strip TPS protections while the litigation continues. That order means immigrants won’t get any relief from the courts before the case goes before justices.

Noem’s termination of the TPS designations affected physicians, artists, auto mechanics, students, construction workers, and others who came to the US to work hard, Wardlaw wrote. Many, including family members of US citizens, have been detained or deported after losing their status.

“Other TPS beneficiaries have lost their jobs after the Secretary stripped them of their work authorization forms, leaving them with no ability to provide for their families,” she wrote. “Some beneficiaries, unable to work legally, have now lost their homes, rendering them and their families homeless.”

In January oral arguments, Ninth Circuit judges struggled with how the unsigned shadow docket order from justices should influence their consideration of the case. But the panel concluded that the unreasoned stay order didn’t control the outcome.

DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that TPS had been used as “a de facto amnesty program” by previous administrations. She added that the removal of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro by the Trump administration marked a turning point that is bringing stability to that country.

“Temporary means temporary and this is yet another lawless and activist order from the federal judiciary who continues to undermine our immigration laws,” McLaughlin said.

Plaintiffs are represented by the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, ACLU Foundation of Northern California, National day Laborer Organizing Network, Haitian Bridge Alliance, and the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law. The government is represented by the Department of Justice.

The case is National TPS Alliance v. Noem, 9th Cir., No. 25-5724, opinion issued 1/28/26.