by Ariana Figueroa, Florida Phoenix
May 30, 2025

A federal judge in California said Thursday he is considering issuing an order to preserve work permits for a small group of Venezuelans with temporary protected status, which allows migrants to live in the United States for a set period without fear of deportation.

They were granted these extended protections by immigration officials before the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision that allowed the Trump administration to revoke those protections.

A hearing before U.S. District Judge Edward Chen was the first in the case since the Supreme Court on May 19 allowed the Trump administration to end temporary protections for a group of 350,000 Venezuelans and vacated Chen’s order blocking the administration’s move.

Chen, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama to a seat in the Northern District of California, acknowledged that the Supreme Court’s decision has left an “island” of about 5,000 Venezuelans who have gotten work permits approved until October of 2026 — before the high court’s order moved up the date their TPS status expired.

“It’s a small exception,” he said.

Attorneys for those TPS holders filed an emergency motion to protect that subgroup to keep those work and deportation protections through October 2026. They are also pushing for an expedited hearing schedule to challenge the administration’s revocation of protections because the group of Venezuelans lost protections in April, meaning they are subject to deportation.

“Every day that there’s not a final decision in this case, our plaintiffs are now subject to deportation, are now losing their jobs, and we need to move urgently towards a final resolution in this case,” Jessica Karp Bansal, who is representing the National TPS Alliance, said at a Thursday hearing.

Back and forth

In March, Chen found that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s decision to revoke extended protections for Venezuelans previously granted under the Biden administration until October of 2026 was arbitrary and capricious. His order overturned Noem’s revocation of protections for one group of Venezuelans who were placed on TPS in 2023.

The group of Venezuelans given protections in 2023 were initially scheduled to lose that status on April 7, meaning the Supreme Court’s May decision allowed Noem to immediately revoke the extended protections. The second group’s protections will end in September.

The groups who brought the suit against Noem represent TPS holders from Venezuela. The immigration groups have amended their complaint to include TPS holders from Haiti, whose protections will expire in August after Noem revoked an extension.

A federal district court in New York this week held oral arguments on the termination of TPS for more than 300,000 Haitians.

The California case is also before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which will hear oral arguments in July.

Noem cited gang activity as her reason for not extending TPS for the 2023 group of Venezuelans.

The attorneys and the American Civil Liberties Union, on behalf of the TPS holders, are also pressing for discovery to obtain records and documents to show the decision process for ending TPS for nationals from Venezuela and Haiti.

Chen set a status conference for June 24 at 1 p.m. Pacific Time. 

Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com.

The post Federal court wrestles with status of Venezuelans with work permits but denied TPS appeared first on floridaphoenix.com

Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Center-Right

This content primarily presents facts about legal and administrative actions related to temporary protected status (TPS) for Venezuelan and Haitian migrants, focusing on challenges to decisions made under the Trump administration and actions by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, a known Republican figure. The reporting is largely neutral but emphasizes statements from the legal proceedings and immigrant advocates pushing back against the revocations. The inclusion of Noem’s cited rationale (gang activity) offers the administration’s perspective, though the overall framing slightly leans toward a critical view of the revocation process, which aligns with moderate to center-right reporting that acknowledges legal complexity without strong ideological framing.