SAN FRANCISCO, CA – On Friday, May 30th, a federal judge in California granted protection from deportation and work permits to nearly 5,000 Venezuelans who currently have Temporary Protected Status (TPS) only days before they were to expire.
U.S. District Judge Edward E. Chen granted an emergency motion filed by Venezuelan plaintiffs following a recent Supreme Court ruling that the Trump administration can deport some Venezuelans on TPS while other challenges make their way through the courts, the Miami Herald reported. During a hearing that took place on Thursday, May 29th, the government estimated that about 5,000 Venezuelans re-registered for TPS or work permits, a figure Chen referred to in his ruling.
Chen’s order involves two key dates: January 17, 2025, when then-Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Alejandro Mayorkas, extended TPS for Venezuelans until 2026, and February 5, 2025, when the new DHS secretary, Kristi Noem, announced she was revoking the extension. In his 11-page ruling, Chen ordered the government to uphold the rights of TPS holders who received government documentation — such as work permits and/or TPS renewals — under Mayorkas’ extension between those two dates.
Noem revoked TPS protections for roughly 350,000 Venezuelans effective April 7, making them eligible for potential detention and deportation. After the Supreme Court ruling, DHS updated its TPS guidelines, but has yet to clarify how it will implement the decision.
On March 31st, Chen blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to revoke deportation protections for Venezuelans just days before their legal status was set to expire. He ruled that Venezuelan nationals with TPS could suffer “irreparable injury” without a stay on their deportation, though the particular injuries in question were not specified. Then in April, a federal appeals court upheld Chen’s stay, rejecting the government’s request to lift it.
However, on May 19th, the Supreme Court issued a ruling favoring the Trump administration by allowing the termination of TPS to proceed while the case is litigated. The high court clarified that its order does not prevent ongoing challenges to Noem’s decision to cancel work permits and other official documents set to expire on October 2, 2026.
The plaintiffs in the suit that Chen rule in favor of are represented by the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at UCLA School of Law, the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.
“If DHS granted that extension, it must honor it and comply with the court’s order,” said Emi MacLean, a senior staff attorney for the ACLU. “What we do know is that two of the named plaintiffs in our case do benefit from the order,” she said. “We also have named plaintiffs who fall outside the scope of Judge Chen’s ruling — for example, those who received an automatic extension but only after February 5th.”
