A federal judge on Friday cleared the way for the US to end temporary protections from deportation that had allowed hundreds of South Sudanese nationals to live and work in the United States.

Background

US District Judge Patti Saris in Boston rejected a last-ditch effort by immigrant-rights advocates to maintain South Sudan’s Temporary Protected Status designation after the US Supreme Court in June allowed the administration to end similar protections for thousands of people from Haiti and Syria.

The Supreme Court’s ruling, powered by its 6-3 conservative majority, curtailed the ability of lower-court judges to review the US Department of Homeland Security’s efforts under the Trump administration to end Temporary Protected Status for about a dozen countries.

The designation covers people whose home countries have experienced natural disasters, armed conflicts or other extraordinary events, providing eligible migrants temporary protection from deportation and work authorization.

Decision

DHS moved in November to terminate Temporary Protected Status for conflict-ridden South Sudan, saying the country no longer met the conditions for the designation, which was first issued in 2011.

The department’s action would have led to the end of protections for more than 232 South Sudanese and at least 73 South Sudanese with pending applications.

Lawyers for a group of South Sudanese nationals and the nonprofit African Communities Together urged Saris to once again block the end of Temporary Protected Status on new grounds that the justices had not addressed.

James Percival, DHS’s general counsel, in a social media post urged other judges hearing similar Temporary Protected Status cases to follow Saris and lift orders preventing it from ending the protections for people from other countries.

Original reporting: Appleton, WI News Feed (HLL/CB) — read the source article.