Attorney General Anthony G. Brown joined a coalition of 18 attorneys general in filing an amicus brief in National TPS Alliance v. Noem in support of a challenge to the early termination of the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation for Venezuela.
TPS is a critical humanitarian program established by Congress in 1990 that allows nationals of designated countries to remain in the United States due to ongoing armed conflict, environmental disaster, or extraordinary and temporary conditions in their home countries. Currently before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the case is challenging the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) unprecedented efforts to terminate TPS for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan nationals, many of whom have been in the United States for several years and live with family members who are U.S. citizens. In their brief, the attorneys general urge the district court to grant the plaintiffs’ motion to postpone the unlawful early termination of the TPS designation for Venezuela.
“Ending TPS for Venezuelans will have devastating consequences for families who have built their lives here and contribute to our communities. Many have lived in the United States for years, working hard and raising families, said Attorney General Brown. “We are urging the court to prevent this premature termination so they can continue living and working here with stability and dignity.” Nearly 1.1 million individuals living in the United States are TPS recipients or eligible.
The termination of TPS for Venezuelans will not only harm states but will also force hardworking families to make agonizing choices between returning to their country of origin alone, leaving their children behind in broken families or in the foster care system, taking their U.S. citizen children with them to a dangerous country that the children do not know, or staying in the United States and retreating into the shadows, knowing that they cannot work legally and could be removed at any time.
Over 130,000 U.S. citizens live in “mixed status” households with individuals whom DHS wants to unlawfully strip of their temporary protected status—and this figure does not account for the hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans who were made eligible under a 2023 re-designation of TPS.
In the brief, the coalition urges the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California to prevent this order from going into effect, arguing that the termination of Venezuelan TPS is unlawful and will:
o Result in irreparable harm to families, stripping members of work authorization exposing them to the threat of deportation;
o Harm states’ economies and workforces as the TPS-holder community, including the Venezuelan community, are dynamic contributors to Amici States’ economies;
o Raise healthcare costs and pose substantial risks to public health; and
o Create challenges for jurisdictions across the country in enforcing their criminal codes and protecting public safety.
In filing the brief, Attorney General Brown joins the attorneys general of California, New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and the District of Columbia.
Original source can be found here.