A Manhattan federal judge issued an emergency ruling Friday preventing the Trump administration from deporting roughly 3,000 Yemeni refugees, temporarily extending their protective status that was scheduled to expire Monday.
Judge Dale E. Ho granted the temporary extension while litigation challenging the deportation proceeds. In his emergency decision, Ho emphasized that those receiving this protection are law-abiding individuals whom federal officials previously determined would face safety risks if returned to Yemen during its ongoing armed conflict.
The Trump administration has eliminated Temporary Protected Status for individuals from nine nations, including Haiti, Venezuela and Ethiopia, as part of its broader immigration enforcement efforts. Without Ho’s intervention, protections for Yemeni refugees would have ended Monday, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Those holding Temporary Protected Status can legally remain in the United States, cannot be deported, and may obtain work permits and travel documents.
Ho sharply criticized former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in his decision, stating that Congress established specific procedures for modifying or ending Temporary Protected Status, which she failed to follow.
The judge specifically condemned a December social media post where Noem stated she had met with President Donald Trump and was recommending a comprehensive travel ban “on every damn country that’s been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies.”
On February 13, Noem announced through a news release that Yemen’s Temporary Protected Status would end, declaring that allowing them to remain was “contrary to our national interest.”
“TPS holders from Yemen are not ‘killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies,’” Ho stated at the beginning of his conclusion in the 36-page ruling.
The judge highlighted specific cases among the 2,810 Yemenis with current TPS status and 425 applicants, including a 33-year-old pregnant Detroit woman expecting to deliver this month whose unborn child has a heart defect untreatable in Yemen, and a 50-year-old former human rights advocate in Brooklyn who faces targeting by Houthi-aligned militias in Yemen.
“Temporary means temporary and the final word will not be from activist judges legislating from the bench,” the U.S. Department of Homeland Security responded in a statement.
“Allowing TPS Yemen beneficiaries to remain temporarily in the United States is contrary to our national interest,” the department continued, stressing that the Trump administration is “returning TPS to its original temporary intent.”
Razeen Zaman, director of immigrant rights at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, praised Ho’s decision, stating that “the court has made clear that humanitarian statutes like TPS cannot be used as a deportation pipeline.”
Zaman noted in a statement that Homeland Security had acknowledged the danger of returning Yemeni refugees to their homeland “but terminated their protection anyway.”
Zaman said Ho’s decision “affirms that protection must be based on facts and conditions on the ground, not on the political appetite to end it.”
Noem made her announcement to terminate Yemen’s Temporary Protected Status in February. The Department of Homeland Security stated Friday that she had assessed conditions in Yemen and consulted with government agencies before concluding that Yemen no longer satisfied the legal criteria for temporary status.
The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund shared statements from several lawsuit participants in its press release celebrating Ho’s decision.
One plaintiff, using a pseudonym for safety reasons, wrote that those fighting to maintain protections for Yemenis were “doctors, engineers, and pilots like myself, and also drivers, deli workers, and countless other people who contribute meaningfully every day, supporting not just our own families but the broader fabric of society.”
He continued that their presence “represents resilience, skill, and dedication — values that strengthen the nation as a whole.”
Another plaintiff, also using a pseudonym, called Ho’s ruling “a lifeline for my family.” She added: “It is the moment we finally breathed a sigh of relief after months of existential anxiety.”
Yemen first received Temporary Protected Status designation in 2015, approximately one year after the country’s civil conflict commenced.
As the warfare continued, both the Obama and Biden administrations renewed the designation repeatedly, most recently in 2024, when officials calculated that 2,300 Yemenis were eligible to reregister for protected status and that 1,700 Yemenis qualified for the first time.
Ho referenced additional recent court decisions that have allowed individuals fleeing other nations under various circumstances to remain in the United States.
