Ahilan T. Arulanantham

After the Trump administration adopted a narrower interpretation of the law governing temporary protected status for certain immigrants, it terminated permission for more than 300,000 people from Central and South America to remain in the United States.

In response, Arulanantham and the ACLU of Southern California, along with various immigrant rights groups, sued the government, calling the new administration’s view restrictive and unconstitutional. Ramos v. Nielsen, 18-CV1554 (N.D. Cal., filed March 12, 2018).

“I read the newspaper and get very upset at what I read, and at least for some of the things I read about, I get to come to work and shape them and hold the government accountable for not complying with the Constitution,” Arulanantham said. “Although I am certainly tired — it has been a tiring few years — I also feel very honored, and more than honored, lucky to be in a spot where that is my job.”

Arulanantham’s impulse to help refugees and asylum seekers may have developed at a young age. He was a student in the 1980s when civil war erupted in Sri Lanka, displacing thousands, including some of his extended family. Many Sri Lankan Tamils relocated to his hometown of Lancaster. His family housed and helped as many Tamils as they could, Arulanantham said.

Arulanantham and his father, a physician, visited South India and Sri Lanka to help people in refugee camps. There, he said, he saw children and adults suffering from malnutrition.

“When I see the incarceration of children in the [U.S.] immigration process, I can’t help thinking about that,” Arulanantham said.

Today, Arulanantham continues to help refuges by fighting the government in key court battles to determine their immigration status and ultimately impact their lives.

In February, Arulanantham and the ACLU won a preliminary injunction in Ramos v. Nielson, forcing the Department of Homeland Security to file a notice indicating that temporary protected status will be extended to January for people from for El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua and Sudan.

Arulanantham is now working on a related case, Bhattarai v. Nielsen, involving six adults with temporary protected status and two American children of temporary status holders. He is seeking to stop what he argues is the unlawful termination of temporary protected status for over 100,000 people from Honduras and Nepal and prevent them being separated from their U.S.-born children.

— Blaise Scemama