A federal appeals court on Monday granted the Trump administration’s request to pause a lower-court ruling that had blocked the termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for migrants from Nepal, Honduras, and Nicaragua, allowing the administration to proceed while the case continues on appeal. In a brief order, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said it was granting a stay of the district court’s vacatur order pending appeal.
The dispute centers on the Department of Homeland Security’s 2015 decision to end TPS designations for the three countries—protections that allow eligible migrants to live and work legally in the United States and shield them from removal while the designation remains in place. Nepal was first designated in 2015 after a devastating earthquake, while Honduras and Nicaragua received TPS after Hurricane Mitch in 1998. DHS published termination notices in the Federal Register in mid-2025.
A federal judge in San Francisco concluded late last year that the terminations violated the Administrative Procedure Act and overturned the decisions. Subsequently, the government appealed the action. The stay pauses the district court’s vacatur, putting DHS’s termination notices back in force while the appeal moves forward.
Immigration advocates, as well as TPS holders, led by the National TPS Alliance as a class action, contested these terminations as not only illegal but also raised constitutional and statutory issues with regard to the decision-making process. The government argues that it has considerable leeway in deciding TPS matters, as vested by the secretary of Homeland Security.
The decision could impact around 89,000 people under the coverage of the three TPS designations, according to reports on the case.
However, the ruling has been welcomed by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who posted on social media that TPS “was never designed to be permanent” and “had been abused in past years.”
The appeal is still pending before the Ninth Circuit.
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