A federal judge in New Jersey has issued a temporary restraining order blocking the Trump administration from terminating Temporary Protected Status for nationals of El Salvador, Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua, halting deportation proceedings for an estimated 350,000 people just days before their protections were set to expire.
U.S. District Judge Esther Salas, appointed by President Barack Obama in 2011, handed down the order on Thursday. The ruling prevents the Department of Homeland Security from ending TPS designations for those four countries while the underlying legal challenge moves forward, as Fox News reported.
The decision lands squarely in the middle of a broader legal war over the Trump administration's immigration enforcement powers, one that has played out across multiple federal courts with mixed results for the White House.
Judge Salas's temporary restraining order freezes the status quo for TPS holders from the four named countries. Their protections had been set to terminate on dates ranging from early 2025 through later this year, depending on the country. The order keeps those individuals lawfully present in the United States and eligible for work authorization while litigation continues.
TPS is a federal designation that allows nationals of countries experiencing armed conflict, natural disasters, or other extraordinary conditions to remain in the United States temporarily. Congress created the program in 1990, and the executive branch has wide discretion over when to designate or terminate protections for specific countries.
The Trump administration had moved to end TPS for these four countries on the grounds that the original conditions justifying protection no longer exist. DHS argued that conditions in El Salvador, Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua have improved enough to allow nationals to return safely.
The case was brought by TPS holders and advocacy organizations who argued that the administration's termination decisions were motivated by racial animus rather than legitimate policy judgment. Plaintiffs pointed to statements by administration officials as evidence that the decision to end TPS was pretextual.
Judge Salas found that the plaintiffs demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits and that they would suffer irreparable harm if TPS protections lapsed while the case was being decided. The court concluded that the balance of equities and public interest favored maintaining the status quo.
The ruling is a temporary restraining order, not a permanent injunction. It preserves existing protections while the court considers whether to issue a preliminary injunction that would last through trial. A hearing on that question has been scheduled, though the exact date was not specified in available reporting.
The decision follows a pattern of federal courts intervening in immigration enforcement actions brought by the Trump administration, creating a patchwork of conflicting rulings across jurisdictions.
The White House signaled it would fight the ruling. A DHS spokesperson called the decision an overreach by a single district judge and said the administration would pursue all available legal options, including an immediate appeal.
Republican lawmakers criticized the order as another example of judicial activism by Obama-era appointees. They argued that the president has clear statutory authority to determine when conditions in a foreign country no longer warrant TPS designation and that courts should defer to the executive branch on such determinations.
Democrats and immigration advocates praised the ruling as a necessary check on what they called arbitrary and discriminatory termination decisions. They argued that hundreds of thousands of people who have lived and worked legally in the United States for years, some for more than two decades, would face chaos and family separation without judicial intervention.
The split reaction underscores a fundamental disagreement over who gets the final word on immigration enforcement. The administration views TPS terminations as a straightforward exercise of executive authority. Opponents view the same decisions as subject to judicial review for discriminatory intent.
This is not the first time federal courts have blocked TPS terminations. During the first Trump administration, multiple judges issued similar injunctions covering some of the same countries. Those cases wound through the appellate courts for years, with the Ninth Circuit ultimately allowing a preliminary injunction to stand in a 2020 decision.
The legal landscape has shifted since then. The Supreme Court has signaled greater skepticism toward sweeping nationwide injunctions issued by single district judges. And some appellate courts have sided with the administration on TPS authority, reversing lower court blocks and giving the executive branch wider latitude to end protections.
That circuit-level split makes it likely that the TPS question will eventually reach the Supreme Court, particularly if the Third Circuit, which covers New Jersey, reaches a different conclusion than other appellate courts have.
Judge Salas sits in the District of New Jersey. Her ruling binds only the parties before her, but the practical effect extends to all TPS holders from the four named countries because the order prevents DHS from implementing termination nationwide for those designations.
Esther Salas has served on the federal bench since 2011. She became a national figure in 2020 when a disgruntled attorney disguised as a FedEx delivery driver shot and killed her son and seriously wounded her husband at their home in North Brunswick, New Jersey. Salas was not physically harmed in the attack.
After the shooting, Salas became an advocate for judicial security legislation. Congress passed the Daniel Anderl Judicial Security and Privacy Act in 2022, named after her son. The law restricts public access to federal judges' personal information.
Her personal history has made her one of the more publicly recognized district judges in the country. Critics of her TPS ruling have focused not on her biography but on her appointment by Obama and what they describe as a pattern of Democratic-appointed judges blocking Republican immigration policy.
Supporters counter that judicial independence means judges must be evaluated on their legal reasoning, not the president who nominated them. They note that Salas has ruled against liberal litigants in other cases and that her TPS decision follows established precedent from the first Trump administration litigation.
The practical stakes are enormous. An estimated 350,000 people hold TPS from El Salvador, Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua. Many have lived in the United States for 15 to 25 years. They have U.S.-citizen children, own homes, and hold jobs in industries ranging from construction to health care.
If TPS terminates, those individuals would lose their lawful status and work authorization. They would become subject to removal proceedings unless they had another basis to remain in the country. Some might qualify for other forms of relief, but many would not.
The administration has argued that the length of time someone has held TPS does not create a right to permanent residence. TPS was designed as a temporary measure, and the statute contemplates that protections will end when conditions improve. Successive administrations of both parties have renewed TPS designations for some countries for decades, but that pattern does not create a legal entitlement to indefinite renewal.
Opponents of termination argue that the "temporary" label has become a legal fiction. When people build lives over two decades based on lawful status granted by the federal government, stripping that status creates a humanitarian crisis that courts have the power and duty to prevent, at least long enough to ensure the decision was made lawfully.
The tension between those two positions sits at the heart of the ongoing constitutional friction over TPS authority and whether courts or the executive branch hold the upper hand.
The immediate next step is the preliminary injunction hearing. If Judge Salas converts the temporary restraining order into a preliminary injunction, the block on TPS termination would remain in place through trial, potentially for months or longer.
The administration is expected to appeal any preliminary injunction to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. The Third Circuit has not previously ruled on the merits of TPS termination challenges, so its decision would be closely watched.
Meanwhile, the administration continues to press its immigration enforcement agenda on other fronts. Federal officials have expanded ICE operations in major cities, and senior officials have warned local leaders who resist federal enforcement that they will face consequences. Those confrontations have played out publicly, including sharp exchanges between federal enforcement leaders and local officials in cities like New York.
The TPS fight is one piece of a larger legal chessboard. Across the country, federal judges have issued conflicting rulings on detention, deportation, and enforcement authority. Some courts have ordered ICE to release detained individuals on due process grounds. Others have upheld the administration's enforcement actions. The result is a fractured legal landscape that only the Supreme Court can fully resolve.
For the Trump administration, the Salas ruling is the latest in a string of lower court orders that have slowed or blocked key immigration priorities. The White House has grown increasingly vocal about what it sees as judicial overreach by district judges who issue orders with nationwide effect based on the claims of a handful of plaintiffs.
For immigration advocates, each court order buys time and preserves protections for people who have built lives in the United States under lawful status. They view the judiciary as the last line of defense against what they call an administration bent on mass removal regardless of individual circumstances.
Both sides are playing for the same prize: a definitive ruling from the Supreme Court on whether the executive branch can terminate TPS designations without meaningful judicial review of its reasoning. Until that ruling comes, every district court order is a skirmish in a war that neither side can win permanently at the trial level.
The question is not whether the courts will have the final say on TPS. They will. The question is whether the law still means what it says about temporary protection being temporary, or whether decades of inertia have quietly built something permanent that no president can undo.
