'Precludes Secretary Noem from reconsidering': Judge blocks Trump administration from swiftly terminating Haiti's temporary protected status

A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from stripping Haitians of their temporary protected status (TPS) in the United States five months earlier than planned.

U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan, in a 23-page order on Tuesday, found that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem”s actions to terminate TPS for Haitians were unlawful because they didn’t follow the procedures and timeline required by the TPS statute passed by Congress.

As Cogan, a George W. Bush appointee, noted in his order, the current TPS designation for people from Haiti was set to expire on Feb. 3, 2026, but a “partial vacatur” by Noem aimed to move that date up to Sept. 2. This move had potential to cause the plaintiffs — a group of individuals and associations from or with ties to the Caribbean nation — “irreparable injury,” even though the revised deadline is still months away.

The TPS statute, Cogan wrote, “precludes Secretary Noem from reconsidering a TPS designation pursuant to other procedures (or no procedures at all), including by partial vacatur.”

In relying on the February 2026 expiration date, Cogan wrote, “plaintiffs have enrolled in schools, taken jobs, and begun courses of medical treatment in the United States.”

“This is sufficient to establish an injury in fact,” the judge noted.

Cogan also credited the plaintiffs’ description of the challenges and chaos they face in trying to set themselves up for a life in Haiti.

From the order:

Specifically, plaintiffs “now have less than [three] months to organize transportation to Haiti; locate housing in which they can live upon their return; seek jobs with which they can support themselves after returning; arrange medical care to treat existing conditions and those they are likely to contract in Haiti; and secure reliable sources of food.” They must also, “in that same rapidly vanishing time,” “make an impossible choice between taking their U.S.-citizen children to Haiti where they would immediately become targets for kidnapping and murder, or leaving them in the United States, where they would not be able to fend for themselves.” Thus, plaintiffs argue, their “injuries are not just imminent – they are already occurring.

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In granting partial summary judgment to the plaintiffs, Cogan added: “Even before Secretary Noem’s termination goes into effect, plaintiffs are currently being (and will continue to be) impacted by the partial vacatur’s removal of TPS protection, having to prepare to lose their rights five months earlier than they thought legally possible.”

“When the Government confers a benefit over a fixed period of time, a beneficiary can reasonably expect to receive that benefit at least until the end of that fixed period,” the judge added on Tuesday.

Cogan’s ruling preserves the TPS status until February 2026 for some 500,000 Haitians, according to Politico.

A TPS designation is given to foreign countries embroiled in conflict, be it civil war, environmental disaster, or other situations, even “in certain circumstances, where the country is unable to handle the return of its nationals adequately,” DHS advises, allowing citizens in those countries to seek temporary refuge in the U.S.

In July 2024, the Biden administration extended Haiti’s TPS designation by 18 months — to February 2026. In February of this year, Noem partially vacated the country’s TPS designation – the partial vacatur to which Cogan referred – and moved the extension from 18 months to 12 months, with an end date of Aug. 3, 2025, signaling she would review the designation again in the coming months. On Thursday, Noem announced the termination of the designation effective Sept. 2.

In doing so, a DHS spokesperson said in a statement, “This decision restores integrity in our immigration system and ensures that Temporary Protective Status is actually temporary.”

“The environmental situation in Haiti has improved enough that it is safe for Haitian citizens to return home,” they added. “We encourage these individuals to take advantage of the Department’s resources in returning to Haiti, which can be arranged through the CBP Home app. Haitian nationals may pursue lawful status through other immigration benefit requests, if eligible.”

The State Department’s travel advisory from last September is still posted, warning U.S. citizens from traveling to the Caribbean nation due to “kidnapping, crime, civil unrest, and limited health care.”

Cogan dismissed the government’s argument that he lacked the authority to review the partial vacatur that set the TPS termination in motion. He cited the Administrative Procedure Act, which holds that “while the review of an agency action is ongoing, the reviewing court ‘may issue all necessary and appropriate process to postpone the effective date of an agency action or to preserve status or rights’ ‘to the extent necessary to prevent irreparable injury.'”

He also largely rejected arguments that his order was tantamount to injunctive relief that would affect the federal government’s foreign relations activities.

He wrote, at length:

Balancing the equities, plaintiffs’ injuries far outweigh any harm to the Government from a postponement. Without a postponement, plaintiffs face the termination of Haiti’s TPS designation on September 2, 2025 and the subsequent loss of their legal right to live and work in the United States, despite this Court’s finding that Secretary Noem’s partial vacatur of Haiti’s TPS designation was unlawful. Other than the Executive Branch’s right to engage in foreign relations activities and enforce the nation’s immigration laws within the bounds Congress has set, which remains intact, the Government identifies no other harms to the public interest, other interested people, or the Government itself that would result from the postponement of Secretary Noem’s partial vacatur.