A month after the Supreme Court curtailed lower courts’ ability to block the Trump administration from revoking temporary deportation protections, fresh efforts to halt the government’s plans for thousands of migrants are heating up around the country.

Background

The high court’s conservative supermajority said in late June that judges do not have the power to review challenges to the Homeland Security secretary’s decision to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for a slew of countries based on claims the administration didn’t follow proper legal procedure.

However, the justices left the door open for TPS beneficiaries to bring constitutional challenges to the administration’s actions. In recent days, legal advocates representing migrants from several countries have either repackaged their earlier procedural arguments into new constitutional claims or signaled plans to do so soon.

Constitutional Challenges

For several of those countries, attorneys defending the TPS designations are also now pushing novel, non-constitutional arguments about whether the department has the authority in the first place to terminate the protections.

Time is of the essence, said Shane Kadidal, an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights who is challenging the revocation of TPS for migrants from Yemen. He pointed to an effort underway by the Justice Department to get judges who previously ruled against the administration to quickly lift those orders so officials can begin deporting scores of migrants from Haiti, Syria, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Burma, Somalia, and Yemen who have been living legally in the United States.

Next Steps

Thus far, three federal courts have ruled against the administration. On Friday, Boston-based Judge Brian Murphy said he will keep the TPS designation for migrants who fled Ethiopia while he weighs new claims from them.

A day earlier, Judge Patti Saris, who also sits in Boston, said she will keep the TPS designation for South Sudan in place for now. Earlier, Judge Matthew Kennelly in Chicago said officials are barred from ending the humanitarian protections for Burma through at least August 7.

Original reporting: KEYT (Ventura/Santa Barbara) — read the source article.