Temporary residents from Nepal and Honduras sue Department of Homeland Security

Advocacy groups sued the Department of Homeland Security on Monday, alleging it decided to improperly remove temporary permits allowing Nepalis and Hondurans to remain in the United States.

The proposed class in the suit filed in the Northern District of California covers just over 100,000 beneficiaries of "temporary protected status," typically referred to as TPS holders, from the two countries.

Citizens of Honduras in 1999 and Nepal in 2015 were designated as eligible for the permits due to crippling natural disasters that fueled exoduses to other nations. The Trump administration announced both groups would lose protected status in 2018.

Stating his organization was representing children born to the temporary permit holders while they were in the United States as well as the parents, Ahilan Arulanantham, senior counsel at the ACLU of Southern California, said the administration "unlawfully stripped [protected status] away."

The plaintiffs "ask only that our government respect their due process rights," he said. "We hope the court will uphold the rule of law and grant them the protection they deserve."

The program was created by the Immigration Act of 1990, a form of humanitarian immigration relief that allows people to live legally in the United States until they could return safely to their home nation. The Department of Homeland Security designates countries due to armed conflict, natural disasters, unrest or other exceptional circumstances.

Under President Donald J. Trump's administration, practices for continued permit eligibility changed to exclude intervening circumstances unrelated to the event that originally justified protections. That practice spurred the announcement Nepalis' and Hondurans' permits would be wound down.

Last year, the Department of Homeland Security decided to terminate protection for El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Sudan.

U.S. District Judge Edward M. Chen of San Francisco enjoined the terminations for similar reasons to those proposed in Monday's complaint.

Both suits claim one reason for the policy changes is racial animus against benefit holders. Both cite a White House meeting at which Trump was reported to have called some beneficiary nations "shithole countries" and allegedly stated a preference for immigrants from places "like Norway."

The lawsuit filed Monday says the revocations for Nepal and Honduras violate the Administrative Procedure Act because the practice ignoring intervening conditions in the permitted nations disregards prior practice. The complaint also says the practice violates the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution with respect to the holders and their children.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to an emailed request for comment. In announcements of temporary permit termination for Honduras and Nepal last year, Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen M. Nielsen said disruption in the countries due to the natural disasters had "decreased to a degree that it should no longer be regarded as substantial."

Honduras and Nepal each got delayed effective dates for termination of protections: for the former, 18 months from the May 4, 2018 announcement, while the latter got 12 months from April 26, 2018.

In the Oct. 3 injunction halting other revocations, Chen wrote plaintiffs showed compelling arguments the administration unjustifiably contravened years of precedent in changing the criteria.

"Plaintiffs have also raised serious questions whether the actions taken by the acting secretary or secretary was influenced by the White House and based on animus against non-white, non-European immigrants in violation of equal protection guaranteed by the Constitution. The issues are at least serious enough to preserve the status quo," Chen added.

Minju Cho of Asian Americans Advancing Justice, another group representing plaintiffs in the case, said temporary permit status "is vital to people's ability to work and provide for themselves and their families." She also said the temporary permit holders "are valued members of our communities. They are parents to tens and thousands of U.S. citizen children."