A national immigration group is suing to block the Trump administration’s termination of removal protections for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan nationals in the US.
The Department of Homeland Security said earlier this month it would let a Temporary Protected Status designation for the country expire in April for the Venezuelans, claiming it’s not in the US national interest for the immigrants to remain in the country. That decision followed the agency’s cancellation last month of a TPS extension through October 2026 for Venezuelans.
The termination of protections exceeded the statutory authority of DHS and was arbitrary and capricious, according to a complaint filed by National TPS Alliance Thursday in the Northern District.
The lawsuit also alleges the termination violated the US Constitution’s equal protection guarantee under the Fifth Amendment because it was motivated by racial bias held by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and other Trump administration officials.
Temporary Protected Status allows immigrants from a designated country to remain in the US for up to 18 months and secure work permits when circumstances like armed conflict or natural disaster prevent them from safely returning home. The Immigration and Nationality Act requires DHS to make an objective review of conditions in a given country 60 days before a designation expires to determine whether protections should be renewed or terminated.
The Biden administration in its final weeks extended those protections for Venezuelans until 2026. But DHS Secretary Kristi Noem rescinded the extension and days later said she would allow protections to lapse in April for 350,000 immigrants from the country, citing strains on resources from local communities and unspecified criminal links. A separate designation covering another quarter million Venezuelans is set to expire in September.
The lawsuit argues that the decision to end the protections was based on the assumption—reflected in comments by President Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance—that TPS itself is illegal, and Venezuelans shielded by the status are in the US illegally. DHS was fulfilling a mandate from the president to remove protections, it said.
And Noem herself has repeatedly referred to immigrants, in particular those from Venezuela, as “dirtbags,” the complaint said. In a Jan. 29 Fox News appearance announcing the cancellation of the TPS extension, Noem linked recipients from Venezuela to the gang Tren de Aragua.
“It suggests a very common racist trope,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, a UCLA Law professor and counsel for the plaintiffs. “Tie immigrants to criminality as justification for oppressing them.”
The plaintiffs are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Northern California, the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, and the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at University of Los Angeles School of Law.
The Department of Homeland Security didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The case is National TPS Alliance v. Noem, N.D. Cal., No. 3:25-cv-01766, complaint filed 2/19/25.