Federal Judge blocks Trump-era move to strip 5,000 Venezuelans of legal status

In a sharp legal rebuke to the Trump administration’s immigration agenda, a US federal judge has halted efforts to revoke work permits and legal residency documents from approximately 5,000 Venezuelans living in the United States under Temporary Protected Status (TPS).

The late-night ruling on May 30 by US District Judge Edward Chen found that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem likely exceeded her legal authority when she moved in February to invalidate documents that had allowed these individuals to live and work lawfully in the US.

The ruling lands just days after the US Supreme Court granted the Trump administration broader power to end TPS for Venezuelans — a humanitarian program shielding individuals from countries experiencing armed conflict, natural disasters, or other crises. However, the high court also left the door open for challenges to specific document cancellations, paving the way for this narrower legal victory.

At the heart of the case are work authorizations and legal documents issued during the final months of President Joe Biden’s term, when the Department of Homeland Security extended TPS protections for Venezuelans by 18 months, pushing the expiration date to October 2026. Secretary Noem later reversed that extension, sparking lawsuits from affected individuals and advocacy groups.

“There is nothing in the law that gives the Secretary the power to cancel those documents,” Judge Chen wrote in his decision, siding with plaintiffs who argued that the abrupt move placed thousands of lives and livelihoods in limbo. He emphasized that only a small number of people — roughly 5,000 — held these specific documents, undercutting any argument that their continued presence posed an economic or national security threat.

Legal advocates welcomed the ruling as a crucial line of defense against sweeping immigration rollbacks.

The Department of Homeland Security has not issued a statement in response to the decision.

Notably, the ruling comes just hours after the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to dismantle another immigration program—one that had provided temporary entry, or “parole,” to over 500,000 individuals from Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti, and Nicaragua.

This latest legal development signals that while the broader landscape for humanitarian protections is shifting, federal courts may still serve as a check on executive overreach.