Ten days after listening to hours of arguments regarding U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to deport more than 300,000 immigrants from certain countries, U.S. District Judge Edward Chen from San Francisco has finally issued his ruling on the matter.
ABC News reports that Chen has blocked the president’s move, saying “the move would cause irreparable harm and great hardship.”
The administration previously decided the U.S. would no longer provide temporary protected status (TPS) to people coming from Sudan, Nicaragua, Haiti, and El Salvador. Chen quickly made his move, asking for a preliminary injunction to first review all the relevant facts of the case.
Following his investigation, Chen said, “there was evidence President Trump harbors an animus against non-white, non-European aliens which influenced his… decision to end the TPS designation.”
Chen’s ruling also cited evidence of this from Trump’s campaign trail in 2015 when he referred to Mexican immigrants as “drug dealers and rapists,” as well as his travel ban imposed on predominantly Muslim countries in 2017 shortly after being sworn into office. Chen also mentioned the president’s unsavory description of African countries made during a meeting regarding immigration at the White House in January this year.
A San Francisco judge blocks the Trump administration from deporting 300,000 protected immigrants pic.twitter.com/juHlw5vtik
— Bloomberg Quicktake (@Quicktake) October 4, 2018
Some of the immigrants who would have been affected had Chen not stepped in have been living and working in the United States for decades.
TPS protects immigrants from countries “affected by natural disasters, civil conflicts, and other problems” from being deported from the U.S., even if they have entered the country illegally. According to Chen, the administration failed to prove that continuing the program would cause harm to the U.S. and its citizens, while plaintiffs were able to show how deporting them would ultimately hurt the economy.
“Beneficiaries who have lived, worked, and raised families in the United States (many for more than a decade) will be subject to removal,” Chen wrote. “Many have children who were born in the US and may be faced with the choice of bringing their children with them (and tearing them away from the only country and community they have known) or splitting their families apart.”
Justice Department spokesman Devin O’Malley said the ruling “usurps the role of the executive branch.”
“The Justice Department completely rejects the notion that the White House or the Department of Homeland Security did anything improper,” he said in a statement. “We will continue to fight for the integrity of our immigration laws and our national security.”
