Left: Corey Lewandowski, American political operative and former campaign manager for Donald Trump, is seen during the CPAC Poland 2025 conference near Rzeszow, Poland. (Photo by Grzegorz Wajda / SOPA Images/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images) Right: U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem during a press conference at the Albrook Gelabert Airport, in Panama City, Tuesday, June 24, 2025. (Anna Moneymaker/Pool photo via AP)
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and her adviser Corey Lewandowski have been ordered to swear — under penalty of perjury — that they didn”t use their personal devices to communicate about immigration policy affecting hundreds of thousands of people.
San Francisco-based U.S. Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim issued the order on Tuesday regarding documents requested by the National TPS Alliance. The requested materials relate to the Department of Homeland Security’s termination of a 2023 extension of TPS for Venezuelans and people from other countries, including Haiti. Noem and Lewandowski had previously not handed those documents over, claiming that they weren’t responsive to the specific request, which included records containing search terms such as “Temporary Protected Status” and “Tren de Aragua.”
The plaintiffs, however, said that the documents “would be indisputably responsive,” and pushed for them to be turned over. Kim ultimately agreed.
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Noem, through her attorneys, has argued that the release of these documents — specifically from the final week of January — are shielded by executive or presidential communications privileges. Kim, on Tuesday, did not appear to be swayed.
“Secretary Noem and Corey Lewandowski must provide declarations under penalty of perjury that they did not use personal devices to communicate about the TPS status for Venezuelans and Haitians by July 3, 2025,” she wrote in her order as part of the documents she demands the Trump administration produce.
“With regard to the claiming of executive privilege/presidential communications privilege, Defendants must provide a declaration explaining why the executive privilege/presidential communications privilege applies to the six documents in question,” she added, saying, “the documents on their face did not demonstrate” that the privileges applied.
Noem announced in February that she was axing the Biden administration’s extension of TPS for Venezuelans. Without the extension until October 2026, this designation ended on April 7.
The program is designed to allow migrants from countries that are deemed unsafe — typically due to severe violence or natural disasters — to remain in the U.S. and work legally on a temporary basis.
While Noem’s action was contested in the courts, the Supreme Court ultimately sided with the Trump administration and allowed the TPS reversal to proceed — terminating the protected status of more than 300,000 Venezuelan migrants.
Still, individual cases have been allowed to continue — such as a case before U.S. District Judge Edward Chen, who sits in San Francisco, when he ruled some 5,000 Venezuelans were not affected by the high court’s ruling.
The National TPS Alliance’s lawsuit seeks to uncover details at the heart of Noem’s original order — details that could elucidate specifics into what Noem and Lewandowski wanted in the lead-up to the TPS revocation.
Lewandowski, a former campaign manager for President Donald Trump, is listed as chief adviser to Noem. Reports emerged in December that he was helping Noem transition into running the department.
