Yet another rogue federal judge has stepped in to issue a temporary block on President Donald Trump’s administration from bringing deportation protections to an end for roughly 200 South Sudanese nationals while a legal challenge moves forward. U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley, who was appointed to the bench by former President Joe Biden, ruled that the order doesn’t address the underlying merits of the case, but will protect the status quo.
The ruling will allow the Sudanese migrants to stay in the U.S. until the court can give fuller consideration to its arguments. “Because of the serious consequences at stake, both for the Plaintiffs and the Defendants, the Court finds an administrative stay appropriate, as it would ‘minimize harm,’ while allowing the assigned District Court Judge the time this case deserves,” Kelley wrote in her four-page decision.
Judge Kelley then stated that she will put out a new ruling after reviewing written briefs from the parties involved in the case, which are due to be turned into her by January 13, 2026. Temporary Protected Status allows nationals who hail from specific designated countries to stay in the United States and obtain work authorization after meeting certain conditions. Those conditions include armed conflict, environmental disasters, or other circumstances that make returning to their countries of origin unsafe.
According to The Conservative Brief, South Sudan first received TPS designation in 2011 after the area gained its independence. Ever since that time, the nation has been faced with instability and violence. The chaos has reached such a severe level that the State Department currently recommends Americans avoid traveling there.
Court filings have indicated that approximately 232 South Sudanese nationals are currently covered by TPS. The report reveals that President Trump’s second term has been working to scale back the Temporary Protected Status program by ending designations for several countries. Other legal challenges are still, as of this writing, pending for Afghanistan, Cameroon, Honduras, Myanmar, Nepal, Nicaragua, Syria, and Venezuela.
In the month of December, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced that she took a look at the conditions in South Sudan and found the country’s TPS designation should end after January 5, 2026. A lawsuit was then filed by individual South Sudanese TPS holders and a group called African Communities Together, making the case that Noem acted unlawfully in her determination.
In what will come as no surprise to many, the plaintiffs say the motivation behind Noem’s decision was racial animus against nonwhite immigrants. They also allege that required consultations with other federal agencies did not take place, and that the current administration lacked sufficient justification for ending the designation.
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Kelley, whose court is based in the city of Boston, is expected to take those claims into consideration next month. Her current ruling keeps the TPS protections in place for the time being, which prevents recipients from being deported. The plaintiffs appealed to the judge to take swift action, warning that not doing so could result in “irreparable harm, including deadly harm.”
The Trump administration responded to the request by slamming plaintiffs for waiting over six weeks after Noem’s announcement before filing the lawsuit. They argued that an administrative stay should only be used to temporarily halt legal proceedings. “It should not serve to directly enjoin Executive agency action, which is what Plaintiffs’ requested administrative stay would accomplish,” the Justice Department stated in court filings. Kelley shot those arguments down, saying that particular approach could lead to the imminent deportation of some of the Sudanese migrants.
“Further, if their TPS expires and is eventually restored following a full consideration of the merits, any gap in immigration status for South Sudanese nationals could result in ineligibility for future relief,” Kelley continued. Earlier in the month, the Supreme Court handed down a decision that said federal courts lack authority to review visa revocations in cases involving fake marriages done for immigration purposes, saying these determinations belong under the discretion of Homeland Security.
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