SAN FRANCISCO – A federal court of appeals today denied the government’s request to stay a district court order - a move that could restore Temporary Protected Status (TPS) protections for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan TPS holders. 

The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit involves a district court order issued on September 5, 2025, in National TPS Alliance v. Mullin, which found that former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem exceeded her authority when she issued orders vacating a TPS extension that had been granted to Venezuela and instead terminating the country’s designation. The district court order had been subject to an unreasoned stay issued by the U.S. Supreme Court on its shadow docket on October 3, 2025. That stay is set to expire next Friday, November 6. 

The Ninth Circuit ruling means that, absent further intervention by the Supreme Court, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans who were stripped of TPS would see their status reinstated on November 6 while litigation challenging the vacatur and termination continues. 

In the period since the Supreme Court stayed the district court’s protections, thousands of Venezuelan TPS holders have been detained, deported, and even killed. Many have also faced separation from their American children, and some have been sent to third countries to which they had no prior connection.

Evidence before the Ninth Circuit included declarations from Venezuelan TPS holders about the harms that they suffered after the termination went into effect.

“I was deported to Liberia after I lost my TPS status. I had no prior connection to Liberia or anywhere else in Africa,” said Carlos Sanchez Villa, in a declaration filed with the court. “It felt like something out of a horror movie, but unfortunately, for me it was real.” 

“Immigration officials deported me to Mexico, where I was put on a bus, driven across the country, and dumped on the street in a city near the border with Guatemala. I was given no shelter or assistance and left to fend for myself in a dangerous country that is not my own,” said Rita di Peri Castellano. 

Jose Palma, Coordinator of the National TPS Alliance, said: “In the face of this administration’s brutal assault, today’s victory renews our strength to fight for the rights won by previous generations of immigrants: to be able to live and work without fear in the place we call home.”

The plaintiffs are represented by the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), the ACLU Foundations of Northern California and Southern California, the UCLA Miñana Family Center for Immigration Law and Policy (Miñana Center), and Haitian Bridge Alliance (HBA).  

At the Ninth Circuit, the government had argued that the Supreme Court’s June 2026 ruling in Mullin v. Dahlia Doe deprived federal courts of jurisdiction to review plaintiffs’ challenge. TPS holders countered that courts retain authority to consider whether the Secretary’s Venezuela- related orders exceeded her authority under the statute. 

Jessica Bansal, TPS Counsel with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network and counsel for Plaintiffs, said: “Secretary Noem’s illegal termination of Venezuela’s TPS stripped over half a million refugees of lawful immigration status and devastated the Venezuelan migrant community. Today, federal courts refused the administration’s invitation to close their eyes to her lawlessness.”

Emi MacLean, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Northern California, said: “The Trump administration has waged a xenophobic attack on immigrants, targeting TPS holders from day one in the largest de-documentation campaign in this country’s history. The district court recognized that this administration cannot exercise authority it does not have. This country was built on checks and balances; that court order must mean something.”

Ahilan Arulanantham, counsel for the plaintiffs, and Faculty Co-Director with the Miñana Center, said: “The Trump administration bears substantial responsibility for the untold horrors that Venezuelan refugees have suffered over the last 18 months. But its unlawful conduct has only been possible because of the Supreme Court's unexplained ‘shadow docket’ orders. We hope the Administration will see the error of its ways, and, if not, that the Supreme Court will uphold the rule of law by leaving the district court's thorough decision undisturbed.” 

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Founded in 2020, the Miñana Family Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law expands the law school's role as a national leader in immigration law and policy, generating innovative ideas at the intersection of immigration scholarship and practice and serving as a hub for transforming those ideas into meaningful changes in immigration policy. 

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