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Feb. 20, 2025 |  By: Ariana Figueroa - Missouri Independent

D.C. court temporarily halts deportation of asylum-seekers in immigration lawsuit

border fence

By Ariana Figueroa - Missouri Independent

WASHINGTON —  Immigrant advocacy groups on Thursday succeeded in a request to a District of Columbia federal judge to temporarily block the Trump administration from deporting their clients, potentially within hours.

The names of the plaintiffs are being withheld for safety reasons granted by the court, but they include a family of four with two children who fled Afghanistan from the Taliban; two women from Ecuador who were sexually assaulted and fear they will be killed; another woman from Brazil who would face domestic violence or death; and a man who was jailed and tortured in Egypt for his pro-democracy views.

One of the women from Ecuador already has been deported, the Department of Justice confirmed in a Thursday emergency hearing.

According to an emergency motion from the American Civil Liberties Union seeking to keep her in the United States, she “fled Ecuador to escape horrific violence and kidnapping by her former partner — a police officer who called her anti-indigenous slurs while raping her, beating her, and holding his gun to her head — and fears that he will kill her if she is removed.”

The clients are part of a lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s executive order that effectively bars asylum claims in the United States. U.S. asylum law was established by Congress in 1980 to allow people fleeing to have refuge if they have a credible fear of persecution.

It’s the first major legal challenge against the executive order that deems an “invasion” at the southern border as the reason for pausing U.S. asylum law, despite some of the lowest numbers of encounters and unauthorized crossings in years at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The decision by Judge Randolph Moss to grant an administrative stay will freeze the legal proceedings in District of Columbia District Court until Monday afternoon. That will give the Justice Department and the immigrant rights groups time to determine whether the D.C. court has the legal jurisdiction to halt the removals.

The suit was brought as a class action by 13 immigrants without legal status affected by the order and three immigrant rights organizations — the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, and Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project.

The ACLU is representing them.

In addition to the executive order, the Trump administration has also shut down the use of the CBP One App, one of the few pathways asylum-seekers could use to make appointments to lodge their asylum claims.

The ACLU argues that the executive order circumvents asylum law established by Congress.

Birthright citizenship, other suits

Immigration rights groups have levied a slew of lawsuits against the Trump administration since the start of the president’s second term.

As part of Trump’s campaign promise to enact mass deportations, he directed the Department of Defense to begin transporting migrants detained in the U.S. to the naval base in Guantanamo Bay. That has already resulted in a lawsuit over “the government’s attempt to thwart access to counsel for immigrant detainees,” according to a complaint brought by immigrant rights advocates.

While Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said that only the “worst of the worst” would be housed on the base, the Department of Justice in a Thursday response to the lawsuit noted that 51 out of the 178 migrants were “low-threat.”

Additionally, four nationwide injunctions have been placed against Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship.

A panel of judges on the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals late Wednesday rejected the Department of Justice’s request to lift one of those injunctions placed by a Washington state judge. It could be one of the first birthright citizenship challenges to head to the conservative-dominated U.S. Supreme Court, where Trump has appointed a third of the justices.

And a lawsuit filed by a group of Temporary Protected Status holders Thursday is challenging Noem’s decisions regarding TPS for roughly 600,000 Venezuelans, citing a violation of administrative procedures.

The suit contends Noem’s decision to end that protected status was “motivated at least in part by racial animus,” which violates equal protection under the Fifth Amendment.

Asylum case

Among the 13 plaintiffs in the District of Columbia asylum case, the ACLU argued that eight could be removed as soon as Thursday night.

However, Lee Gelernt, the lead ACLU attorney, said he believed one of the plaintiffs was already on a deportation flight, which is why lawyers filed for the emergency temporary restraining order. ACLU has also filed for a preliminary injunction against the executive order.

“We don’t see why the government would not allow these eight plaintiffs to remain” in the United States until the outcome of the case, Gelernt said during Thursday’s emergency hearing before Moss, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama in 2014.

A judge can intervene in a deportation based on a removal order, but it’s unclear to the ACLU and the Justice Department what the status of removal is for the plaintiffs in the suit.

If they are under expedited removal, a deportation in federal court generally cannot be challenged, because jurisdiction is stripped in the process. But if they are under a removal order, a judge can intervene.  

Brian Ward, senior counsel from the Department of Justice, said the Trump administration would need time to figure out the removal orders for the plaintiffs in the case and questioned the legal jurisdiction of the D.C. court in preventing removals.

Gelernt argued that even if the status of removal is expedited, the D.C. court has in the past issued stays in such cases.

“These Individual Plaintiffs are noncitizens who fled persecution and torture in their countries of origin and seek asylum and other protection in the United States,” according to the emergency motion from the ACLU. “They are currently detained by Defendants in the United States and could be imminently removed under the unlawful Proclamation challenged in this suit.”

Temporary Protected Status

The National TPS Alliance, which is a member-led organization of TPS holders across the country, including those from Venezuela, brought the case against Noem in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

TPS is granted to nationals who hail from a county that is deemed too dangerous to return to due to violence, disaster or other unstable circumstances.

The Trump administration on Jan. 19, 2021, issued 18-month deportation protections for Venezuelans — known as Deferred Enforcement Departure, or DED — citing the country’s unstable government under President Nicolás Maduro.

“Through force and fraud, the Maduro regime is responsible for the worst humanitarian crisis in the Western Hemisphere in recent memory,” according to the Jan. 19, 2021 memo. “A catastrophic economic crisis and shortages of basic goods and medicine have forced about five million Venezuelans to flee the country, often under dangerous conditions.”

After the DED designation, the Biden administration issued TPS designation for Venezuelans later in 2021, and again in 2023, creating two groups of TPS holders from the same country.

The suit challenges Noem’s decision to revoke an 18-month extension of TPS for 600,000 Venezuelans that was granted under the Biden administration in January and would have lasted until October 2026.

The suit also challenges Noem’s decision to end TPS for the 2023 group of Venezuelans – about 350,000 of the 600,000 – leaving them with protections that expire in April and could subject them to deportation.

In her reasoning for ending TPS status, she cited gang activity. Those with TPS need to pass a background check and holders can have their status revoked and deported if they commit a serious crime.

The suit argues that “Secretary Noem, President Trump, and members of the Trump campaign and administration have made to attack and marginalize nonwhite immigrants generally, and the Venezuelan TPS community in particular.”

“That is clear from statements the Secretary made when announcing the decisions themselves, labeling Venezuelan TPS holders as ‘dirtbags’—an expression of racism made by the official decision maker as part of her explanation for the decision,” according to the suit.

The second group of TPS holders from Venezuela, about 250,000, have TPS protections until Sept. 10 and Noem has until July 12 to decide if she will renew those protections.