Trump’s immigration powers are being put to the test — and a judge just drew a line

The Donald Trump administration has found itself in yet another conflict with the courts after U.S. District Court Judge Trina Thompson blocked a move by the administration to end the protected status of 60,000 immigrants.

Trump targeted migrants from Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua in the country under the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) category. The category was enacted by Congress in 1990 to allow people from “troubled” countries to live and work legally and temporarily in the U.S. It applies to people from nations recovering from natural disasters, experiencing ongoing war, or facing other conditions that make living in their home countries inhospitable.

Trump e has made his intention to deport as many people as possible unmistakable. Whenever he speaks about immigrants from countries like Somalia, his disdain and mistrust are well pronounced. He has also been accused of making unconstitutional advances in pursuit of his anti-immigration policies.

“Our laws should not favor the loud and powerful simply because of their positions”

The Trump administration claims that Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua have recovered from the “environmental issues” that previously plagued them and therefore moved to end their temporary status in the U.S. However, according to Newsweek, Judge Thompson issued an extensive 52-page ruling blocking the move, declaring that the law must speak for the people in the U.S. who call the nation home but have a faint political voice.

Under the congressional act, applicants who qualify for TPS must already be living in the U.S. and must have undergone Department of Homeland Security vetting. This would seemingly contravene another Trump promise, in which he said his administration would target individuals who are in the U.S. illegally and have had issues with law enforcement.

DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin blasted the courts, suggesting that the administration views them as specifically hostile and attempting to usurp executive authority led by President Trump. McLaughlin called the ruling “yet another lawless and activist order.”

Honduras and Nicaragua were first granted inclusion in the TPS category in 1990 after Hurricane Mitch swept through both countries. In 2015, the program was extended to Nepal following a deadly earthquake that upended livelihoods and families.

In her ruling, Judge Thompson wrote:

“Our laws should not favor the loud and powerful simply because of their positions. Yet, for too long, our laws have overlooked the quiet truths — truths carried in the margins, truths lived but never spoken aloud. It is the duty of every public servant entrusted with shaping a more just society to bring those truths into the open, to translate lived experience into written protection.”

McLaughlin, meanwhile, responded by claiming that the Joe Biden administration abused TPS in a way that allowed violent criminals and terrorists into the U.S. She insisted that courts must begin honoring the temporary nature of the program.