A ruling from a federal judge protects thousands of immigrants from deportation, at least for now.
The order stems from a lawsuit over the Temporary Protected Status for immigrants from Sudan, Haiti, El Salvador and Nicaragua. TPS allows people from other countries to live and work in the U.S. legally because of dangerous conditions in their home nations.
Sudan and Nicaragua have had protected status for about two decades. El Salvador got TPS designation in 2001 and Haiti in 2010.
President Donald Trump's Department of Homeland Security decided to end the protected status for all four countries. The decisions set an end date for each country's TPS, affecting a total of about 300,000 immigrants.
The plaintiffs filed a class action lawsuit in March, arguing the Trump administration broke with precedent in its decision to end TPS for those four countries.
The judge's ruling Wednesday granted a preliminary injunction. So it bars the government from deporting protected immigrants while the case works it way through the courts.
In the order, the judge said he granted the injunction request to preserve the status quo. He wrote, "TPS beneficiaries thus risk being uprooted from their homes, jobs, careers, and communities. They face removal to countries to which their children and family members may have little or no ties and which may not be safe."
The ruling is especially good news for immigrants from Sudan. Their protected status was set to end November 2.
