Judge protects Yemeni refugees, slams Trump administration's push to end special status

NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge in New York on Friday protected about 3,000 refugees from Yemen from being forced to leave the United States, saying in a written ruling that the Temporary Protected Status that was repeatedly granted to them and due to expire Monday should be extended again.

Judge Dale E. Ho, extending the status while a lawsuit he presides over proceeds, said those granted the status are ordinary, law-abiding people who the U.S. government had determined could face threats to their safety if they were returned to a country facing an ongoing armed conflict.

The Trump administration has terminated Temporary Protected Status for people from nine countries, including Haiti, Venezuela and Ethiopia. Before the ruling, protections for Yemeni refugees were set to end on Monday, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

People with Temporary Protected Status are eligible to remain in the U.S., may not be removed from the country, and are able to receive work and travel authorization.

In his ruling, Ho criticized former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, saying Congress had established a process for Temporary Protected Status to be altered or rescinded, but she had not followed it.

He was particularly critical of a social media message she sent out in early December in which she said she had just met with President Donald Trump and was recommending a full travel ban “on every damn country that's been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies.”

On Feb. 13, he noted, Noem announced in a news release that Temporary Protected Status would be terminated for Yemen, finding that letting them stay in the U.S. was “contrary to our national interest.”

“TPS holders from Yemen are not ‘killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies,’ ” Ho wrote at the start of his conclusion in his 36-page decision.

He noted that among 2,810 Yemenis who hold TPS status and an additional 425 who have applied for it were a pregnant 33-year-old Detroit woman due to give birth this month whose unborn child has a congenital heart condition that is not treatable in Yemen and a 50-year-old former human rights worker in Brooklyn who is a target of Houthi-aligned militias in Yemen.

The U.S. Justice Department and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment.

“Today, the court has made clear that humanitarian statutes like TPS cannot be used as a deportation pipeline,” said Razeen Zaman, director of immigrant rights at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund.

Zaman said in a release that Homeland Security had determined that it was unsafe for Yemeni refugees to return to their country “but terminated their protection anyway.”

Zaman said Ho's ruling "affirms that protection must be based on facts and conditions on the ground, not on the political appetite to end it.”

One plaintiff listed in the release by a pseudonym to protect his safety wrote that those protected by the lawsuit were “doctors, engineers, and pilots like myself, and also drivers, deli workers, and countless other people who contribute meaningfully every day, supporting not just our own families but the broader fabric of society.”

He added that their presence "represents resilience, skill, and dedication — values that strengthen the nation as a whole.”

A woman listed in the release under a pseudonym to protect her safety called Ho's decision “a lifeline for my family.”

She added: "It is the moment we finally breathed a sigh of relief after months of existential anxiety,”

Yemen was initially designated for Temporary Protected Status in 2015, about a year after the country’s civil war began.

Ho cited other instances in which courts have recently permitted those who have fled other countries under various circumstances to stay in the United States.

Associated Press writer Larry Neumeister contributed to this report.