A federal judge in Manhattan on Friday blocked the Trump administration from ending Temporary Protected Status for about 3,000 Yemeni refugees, ruling that the Department of Homeland Security failed to follow the process Congress established for altering or rescinding the designation. The decision by U.S. District Judge Dale E. Ho temporarily extends the protections — which were set to expire Monday — while a lawsuit brought by Yemeni TPS holders and advocacy groups moves forward.
Ho, in a 36-page opinion, reserved some of his sharpest language for former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. He highlighted a December social media post in which Noem, after meeting with President Donald Trump, said she was recommending a full travel ban “on every damn country that’s been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies.” Ho wrote that Yemeni TPS holders are not those things, and criticized Noem for failing to follow the statutory process.
The ruling cited specific beneficiaries to illustrate the stakes: a 33-year-old pregnant woman in Detroit due to give birth this month whose unborn child has a congenital heart condition that cannot be treated in Yemen, and a 50-year-old former human rights worker in Brooklyn who is a target of Houthi-aligned militias. There are approximately 2,810 Yemenis who currently hold TPS and another 425 who have applied, according to court filings.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that “temporary means temporary and the final word will not be from activist judges legislating from the bench.” The department added that the administration is “returning TPS to its original temporary intent” and that allowing Yemeni TPS beneficiaries to remain is “contrary to our national interest.”
Razeen Zaman, director of immigrant rights at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, applauded the ruling, saying that “the court has made clear that humanitarian statutes like TPS cannot be used as a deportation pipeline.” Zaman said DHS had previously determined it was unsafe for Yemenis to return but “terminated their protection anyway.”
Two plaintiffs, identified by pseudonyms to protect their safety, described the relief the ruling brought. “It is the moment we finally breathed a sigh of relief after months of existential anxiety,” one wrote. Another, a pilot, said the Yemeni community includes “doctors, engineers, and pilots like myself, and also drivers, deli workers, and countless other people who contribute meaningfully every day.”
Yemen was first designated for TPS in 2015, about a year after the country’s civil war began. The Obama and Biden administrations repeatedly extended the designation, most recently in 2024, when officials estimated 2,300 Yemenis were eligible to reregister and another 1,700 were newly eligible.
The ruling is the latest in a series of court decisions that have blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to end protected status for people from several countries, including Haiti, Venezuela, and Ethiopia.