The Trump administration on Thursday filed an emergency application with the U.S. Supreme Court, asking that the justices lift a ruling from a U.S. district judge against this administration, this time to do with Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelan immigrants.
As reporting from The Hill highlighted, the order came from yet another district judge ruling against the administration, in this instance from U.S. District Judge Edward Chen, from the U.S, District Court for the Northern District of California, which is located in San Francisco. Like several other judges who have ruled against this administration, Chen is an appointee of federal President Barack Obama.
According to The Hill:
U.S. District Judge Edward Chen, an appointee of former President Obama, agreed to halt the administration’s plans on March 31. The emergency appeal at the Supreme Court comes after a three-judge panel on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to lift Chen’s order.
Chen determined the government did not follow proper procedure for stripping TPS and wrote that the administration was “motivated at least in part by animus.”
“As discussed in other parts of this order, the Secretary’s rationale is entirely lacking in evidentiary support. For example, there is no evidence that Venezuelan TPS holders are members of the [Tren de Aragua] gang, have connections to the gang, and/or commit crimes,” Chen wrote, noting that “Venezuelan TPS holders have lower rates of criminality than the general population and have higher education rates than the broader U.S. population.
“Generalization of criminality to the Venezuelan TPS population as a whole is baseless and smacks of racism predicated on generalized false stereotypes.”
Solicitor General D. John Sauer referenced the balance of powers in his application, which is something the Trump administration and other critics of these federal judges have raised concerns with.
Last month, the House passed legislation meant to rein in such judges, with Judge James Boasberg being a major focus, though certainly not the only judge who has issued concerning rulings against the second Trump administration.
As the report quoted Sauer as arguing:
“Its order upsets the judgments of the political branches, prohibiting the Executive Branch from enforcing a time-sensitive immigration policy and indefinitely extending an immigration status that Congress intended to be ‘temporary,’” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in the application.
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In the application, the Trump administration argued that the suit was interfering with its foreign policy objectives.
“Delay of the Secretary’s decisions threatens to undermine the United States’ foreign policy just as the government is engaged in complex and ongoing negotiations with Venezuela,” wrote Sauer.
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Sauer argued the changes to TPS are “quintessentially unreviewable decisions” outside the reach of the federal courts, insisting the Supreme Court’s intervention is needed to rein in the lower judge.
“That is a classic case of judicial arrogation of core Executive Branch prerogatives and alone warrants correction,” he wrote.
The piece also mentions, as do Sauer and Chen, the role of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem, whose predecessor, then DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and the Biden-Harris administration as a whole, truly messed up the immigration issue with their open borders.
President Donald Trump ran in 2024 on fixing the immigration crisis caused by his successor/predecessor, and whether he was running against then President Joe Biden or then Vice President Kamala Harris, he was leading handily in the polls on immigration, a top issue if not the top issue for voters.
As the piece points out about Noem:
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem “vacated” a renewal of TPS for Venezuelans shortly after taking office in January, saying she was not going to let the prior administration “tie our hands.” Noem announced the move in an interview in which she repeatedly referred to migrants as “dirtbags.”
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TPS may only be designated — and revoked — after a review of conditions on the ground of the country in question. When former Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas designated Venezuela for TPS, he described a “severe humanitarian emergency due to a political and economic crisis, as well as human rights violations and abuses and high levels of crime and violence, that impacts access to food, medicine, healthcare, water, electricity, and fuel, and has led to high levels of poverty.”
Mayorkas can say what he likes about Venezuelans, but that doesn't change how the second Trump administration needed to come in and clean up the severe border crisis caused by the previous administration. When Trump was elected on immigration, it makes sense members of his Cabinet would not let the Biden-Harris administration "tie [their] hands."
Justice Elena Kagan deals with emergency appeals from the 9th Circuit, and may decide the matter or herself, or could refer it to the full Court, as the report also mentioned. The justices have ruled before on matters from the Trump administration, with mixed results. Although there's a 6-3 majority for conservative justices, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, have often acted as swing votes for this second Trump term.