US appeals court says Noem's decision to end protections for Venezuelans in US was illegal

A federal appeals court ruled late Wednesday that the Trump administration acted illegally when it ended legal protections that gave hundreds of thousands of people from Venezuela permission to live and work in the United States.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling that found Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem exceeded her authority when she ended temporary protected status for Venezuelans.

The decision, however, will not have any immediate practical effect after the U.S. Supreme Court in October allowed Noem's decision to take effect pending a final decision by the justices.

An email late Wednesday night to the Department of Homeland Security was not immediately returned.

The 9th Circuit panel also upheld the lower court's finding that Noem exceeded her authority when she decided to end TPS early for hundreds of thousands of people from Haiti.

A federal judge in Washington is expected to rule any day now on a request to pause the termination of TPS for Haiti while a separate lawsuit challenging it proceeds. The country’s TPS designation is scheduled to end on February 3.

Ninth Circuit Judges Kim Wardlaw, Salvador Mendoza, Jr. and Anthony Johnstone said in Wednesday's ruling that the TPS legislation passed by Congress did not give the secretary the power to vacate an existing TPS designation. All three judges were nominated by Democratic presidents.

“The statute contains numerous procedural safeguards that ensure individuals with TPS enjoy predictability and stability during periods of extraordinary and temporary conditions in their home country,” Wardlaw, who was nominated by President Bill Clinton, wrote for the panel.

Wardlaw said Noem's “unlawful actions have had real and significant consequences” for Venezuelans and Haitians in the United States who rely on TPS.

“The record is replete with examples of hard-working, contributing members of society — who are mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, and partners of U.S. citizens, pay taxes, and have no criminal records — who have been deported or detained after losing their TPS,” she wrote.

Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, authorized by Congress as part of the Immigration Act of 1990, allows the Homeland Security secretary to grant legal immigration status to people fleeing countries experiencing civil strife, environmental disaster or other “extraordinary and temporary conditions” that prevent a safe return to that home country.

Designations are granted for terms of six, 12 or 18 months, and extensions can be granted so long as conditions remain dire. The status prevents holders from being deported and allows them to work, but it does not give them a path to citizenship.

In ending the protections, Noem said that conditions in both Haiti and Venezuela had improved and that it was not in the national interest to allow immigrants from the two countries to stay on for what is a temporary program.

Millions of Venezuelans have fled political unrest, mass unemployment and hunger. The country is mired in a prolonged crisis brought on by years of hyperinflation, political corruption, economic mismanagement and an ineffectual government.

Haiti was first designated for TPS in 2010 after a catastrophic magnitude 7.0 earthquake killed and wounded hundreds of thousands of people, and left more than 1 million homeless. Haitians face widespread hunger and gang violence.

Mendoza wrote separately that there was “ample evidence of racial and national origin animus” that reinforced the lower court's conclusion that Noem's decisions were “preordained and her reasoning pretextual.”

“It is clear that the Secretary’s vacatur actions were not actually grounded in substantive policy considerations or genuine differences with respect to the prior administration’s TPS procedures, but were instead rooted in a stereotype-based diagnosis of immigrants from Venezuela and Haiti as dangerous criminals or mentally unwell,” he wrote.

Attorneys for the government have argued the secretary has clear and broad authority to make determinations related to the TPS program and those decisions are not subject to judicial review. They have also denied that her actions were motived by racial animus.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks about the impending winter weather during a news conference at Federal Emergency Management Agency headquarters, Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

A man was arrested after repeatedly crashing his car into the Chabad Lubavitch world headquarters in New York City on Wednesday night while people were gathered for prayer at the deeply revered Hasidic Jewish site.

No one was injured when the driver struck a door of a building in the complex before reversing and striking it several more times. Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said that while it was too early in the investigation to speculate on the driver's motives, the incident was being investigated as a possible hate crime.

“This is deeply alarming, especially given the deep meaning and the history of the institution to so many in New York and around the world,” said New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who called the crash “intentional."

Video of the crash that was posted online shows a car with New Jersey license plates moving forward and backward on an icy driveway leading to a building in the complex and ramming its basement-level doors.

The driver, who is wearing shorts, emerges, shouts to bystanders that “It slipped” and says something to police about trying to park.

Chabad Lubavitch spokesperson Motti Seligson said some of the doors were damaged in the crash.

The Chabad Lubavitch headquarters and synagogue in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood receives thousands of visitors annually. Its Gothic Revival facade is very recognizable to adherents of the Chabad movement and has inspired dozens of replicas across the world.

Commonly referred to as 770, a nod to the Eastern Parkway address of the complex’s original building, the headquarters encompasses multiple adjacent structures.

Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez called the crash “disturbing and unacceptable.”

“This could have been much worse and I’m grateful that no one was hurt," he said in a post on social platform X. "My office is working closely with the NYPD to ensure justice is done and the community is safe.”

Neither bombs nor any other weapons were found in the car that hit the building, according to Tisch. She said it was also too early in the investigation to comment on the driver's mental state.

The incident happened on the 75th anniversary of the date that Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson became the leader of the Lubavitch movement. Schneerson died in 1994 but remains a revered figure globally.

There has been a near constant police presence around 770 Eastern Parkway for years.

The site was at the epicenter of the Crown Heights riots in 1991, when Black residents of the neighborhood attacked Jews after a child was killed by a car traveling in Schneerson's motorcade. In 2014, a disturbed man entered the synagogue and stabbed a rabbinical student, wounding him, before being shot dead by police.

FILE - A man passes the Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, April 7, 2020 in New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)