[Note: This report was updated and expanded to include the latest district court developments regarding the challenge to the effort to end Ethiopia TPS, with the final update at 10:20 p.m.]
Continued fallout from the U.S. Supreme Court’s June decision severely limiting challenges to the Trump administration’s efforts to end temporary protected status for many immigrants was being seen across the country this week.
A federal appeals court issued an order on Wednesday that would allow the Trump administration’s effort to end TPS for more than 4,500 people in the United States from Ethiopia to go forward, although a district court’s temporary order — that goes into effect in the aftermath of the appeals court’s order — is keeping the Ethiopia TPS in place for now.
The brief order from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit on Wednesday reversed a district court order from April that had put the administration’s Ethiopia-related plans on hold.
Noting that the Supreme Court held that “non-constitutional claims” based on a decision to end a TPS designation were not allowed, the unsigned order stated, “Claims of that nature were the only basis for the postponement order on appeal“ here. As such, the lower court’s April order was reversed.
The order was issued on behalf of Judges Julie Rikelman (Biden), Seth Aframe (Biden), and Joshua Dunlap (Trump) — the three newest judges on the New England-based appeals court.
Although that ruling went into immediate effect, U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy is also addressing an amended complaint that the challengers filed in the wake of the Supreme Court’s June ruling. In that complaint, the challengers raise equal protection and due process claims, along with a claim that only the attorney general — not secretary of homeland security — can terminate TPS.
As a result of that and a request for an immediate administrative stay from the court, Murphy, on July 24, issued an order granting the request “as follows,” as he wrote:
To preserve the status quo, the effective date of termination of the designation of Temporary Protected Status for Ethiopia (the "Termination") will be STAYED, subject to further order of this Court or higher courts, pending resolution of Plaintiffs' renewed motion for postponement. During the period of the stay of the Termination, the Termination shall be null, void, and of no legal effect. This Order is effective immediately upon this Court's receipt of the First Circuit's mandate in African Communities Together v. Mullin, No. 26-1376.
The mandate was issued at 4:13 p.m. Wednesday, per the First Circuit’s docket, but it does not yet appear on the district court docket.
In either event, when Murphy’s court gets that mandate — reversing his April order — this new order will go into effect. At the same time, however, DOJ is seeking to have the amended complaint dismissed and has opposed the challengers’ request for interim relief.
The roughly 4,500 people directly affected from Ethiopia is not as big a number as the more than 350,000 people affected by the termination of Haiti’s TPS or the 7,000 people involved in the ending of Syria TPS — the two countries at issue in the Supreme Court’s decision — but it shows the continued and expanding harm that will likely befall any group the Trump administration decides to treat this way.
As CBS News made clear on July 26, through Trump administration sources, the plan is “to ramp up operations to arrest and deport Haitian migrants“ now that they are free to do so. The issue, as Bloomberg put it, is that:
Or, as the Trump administration’s own State Department put it, more than two weeks after the Supreme Court’s ruling:
On the upper right, those aren’t subway lines. Those are highlighted warnings regarding crime, terrorism, civil unrest, health, and kidnapping/hostage taking.
It is a similar picture for Syria:
And, though the State Department provided the next lower risk level as to Ethiopia overall, it is important to note the highlighted crime, terrorism, civil unrest, kidnapping/hostage taking, and other risks and that the State Department does warn “Do Not Travel” to several regions throughout the country:
The horror of this is not only the global implications for those affected. Before that, there are first the inhumanity and impossible choices being forced upon these people in the United States.
As The Haitian Times covered on Monday, the questions are immediate:
“What happens to my child going to school in September, if I go?” the story quoted one person as asking.
A Monday story from WDTN 2 News — the local NBC News station that covers Springfield, Ohio — discussed the question being faced by Haitians in the city about whether to “self-deport” in light of the administration’s plans.
The Department of Homeland Security responded with the sort of immoral hate for which its social channels have become known.
In Springfield, the city whose immigrant population has been viciously targeted by President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance, the response is different.
On Wednesday, WDTN’s latest report focused on how “local organizations are stepping up to help,” highlighting a gathering in which “faith leaders prayed for and expressed solidarity with those previously living under TPS” and how “G-92, the non-profit organization made up of area churches, is asking for money and food to help families previously living under TPS.“
So the folks that have tps are advised by the government to return to their home countries EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE MORE DANGEROUS THAN WHEN THEY LEFT!
WHAT KIND OF FUCKING BULLSHIT IS THIS!
I can't shake the feeling that DHS actually wants them dead, like so many vermin, because that is the likely outcome. Shipping them to third world countries is relatively cheap, and like one of those covered mousetraps, no one has to see the mangled corpse.