Administration plans to comply with temporary halt of TPS ruling, while another activist judge stymies efforts to rein in sanctuary cities

By Jennifer G. Hickey | October 25, 2018

In response to an October 3 ruling in the matter of Ramos v. Nielsen that blocks the termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haiti, Sudan, Nicaragua and El Salvador, the Trump administration announced this week its intent to comply with the order.

Late Tuesday, the Trump administration filed documents with the court detailing how it plans to heed to US District Judge Edward Chen’s preliminary injunction.

In his decision against the rescission of TPS status, Judge Chen suggested that the decision to terminate was based on racism and was in violation with constitutional due process and equal protection requirements.

As FAIR Research Director Matt O’Brien noted in a recent blog on the case, Judge Chen’s ruling represents “only the latest example of a disturbing trend toward judicial arrogance in the immigration realm.”

A day after the Trump administration submitted their plan, another judge stopped the progress being made to hold sanctuary jurisdictions to account. On Wednesday. U.S. District Court Judge Richard A. Jones ruled that part of a Trump administration executive order withholding funding from the two sanctuary cities in Washington State was unconstitutional.

Jones, an appointee of President George W. Bush, Jones argued that because Congress has not put conditions for compliance on the funding, it would be unconstitutional to withhold it from sanctuary jurisdictions.