Judge Criticizes Kristi Noem’s ‘Preordained’ Decision on Haitian Immigrants, Highlights Racial Bias Concerns

In a significant legal development, a federal judge has issued an indefinite injunction against the Trump administration’s decision to end temporary protected status (TPS) for a substantial number of Haitian nationals residing in the United States since 2021.

Judge Ana C. Reyes, appointed by President Joe Biden, ruled that the attempt to terminate TPS is “null, void, and of no legal effect” during the stay. She clarified that the protections and benefits previously granted under TPS, including work permits and safeguards against detention and deportation, remain in force and that the validity of work authorization continues throughout this period.

The decision stems from a lawsuit filed in July 2025 by a group of plaintiffs challenging what they described as a “preordained” move to end TPS. Their case argued that the termination violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) as well as the Fifth Amendment’s equal protection clause.

In the background of this legal battle, two other TPS-related lawsuits have been unfolding in separate federal courts, influencing the proceedings in this case in various ways.

In response to the legal challenges, by September 2025, Kristi Noem, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), committed to publishing a review of Haiti’s TPS status in the Federal Register. This publication is a critical step in ensuring that agency actions align with the APA’s regulatory requirements.

In November 2025, Noem’s review was published, giving Haitian TPS an end date of Feb. 3, 2026. In December 2025, the plaintiffs filed a motion for relief pending review, which is more commonly called a §705 motion for a stay. By filing a §705 motion, a party can seek a discrete kind of judicial pause — one expressly provided for in federal law — while a judge makes a holistic review of an agency’s action.

The stay motion was actually the second time the plaintiffs tried this avenue of redress, having first filed for one in August 2025. After Noem’s promise to follow the APA rules and publish the review in the Federal Register, however, the court “took the government at its word” and denied the initial request as moot.

Now, ruling on the second §705 motion, Reyes found Noem’s attempts to end TPS violate both the APA and the Fifth Amendment.

“Plaintiffs charge that Secretary Noem preordained her termination decision and did so because of hostility to nonwhite immigrants,” the court muses. “This seems substantially likely.”

The 83-page memorandum opinion begins by contrasting George Washington with Noem — by way of a quotation showcasing the Founding Father’s welcoming opinion of immigrants.

The opening salvo of the order reads:

On December 2, 1783, then-Commander-in-Chief George Washington penned: “America is open to receive not only the Opulent & respected Stranger, but the oppressed & persecuted of all Nations & Religions.” More than two centuries later, Congress reaffirmed President Washington’s vision by establishing the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program. It provides humanitarian relief to foreign nationals in the United States who come from disaster-stricken countries. It also brings in substantial revenue, with TPS holders generating $5.2 billion in taxes annually.

The judge then quotes Noem’s “different take” on immigration by citing a December 2025 post, in full, from X (formerly Twitter):

I just met with the President.

I am recommending a full travel ban on every damn country that’s been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies.

Our forefathers built this nation on blood, sweat, and the unyielding love of freedom—not for foreign invaders to slaughter our heroes, suck dry our hard-earned tax dollars, or snatch the benefits owed to AMERICANS.

WE DON’T WANT THEM. NOT ONE.

The judge’s opinion repeatedly refers back to Noem’s post.

Such verbiage, along with various statements by President Donald Trump wherein he committed to ending TPS for Haitians, the court found, means the end result was “preordained.” And a preordained agency action violates the APA, the court found.

Reyes also determined the decision to end TPS for Haitians was “arbitrary and capricious,” an APA-sourced term of art which refers to agency actions that go too far while simultaneously eschewing formal, mandatory processes. Here, the court takes issue with Noem’s post-litigation excuse for ending the protections.

To hear the government tell it, Haiti is slowly being pulled out of the state of chaos, privation, and crime which originally prompted the 2021 designation. But, the court found that’s not even remotely true — despite some modest predictions about increased economic output in the unlikely event the political and security situation on the island nation is stabilized and improves.

“An agency may rely on reasoned projections of future conditions to justify its actions,” the opinion explains. “But not here. The TPS statute requires periodic review, which focuses the inquiry on present conditions rather than future change, and Secretary Noem failed to explain why speculative future improvement outweighed overwhelming evidence of present danger. Because her explanation runs counter to the record before her, the Court finds Plaintiffs will likely show that Secretary Noem’s decision to terminate Haiti’s TPS designation is arbitrary and capricious.”

In the final APA analysis section, the court disputes the notion that revoking TPS for Haitians is in the so-called “national interest.” Instead, the court finds that Haitians are an economic net positive by way of the taxes they pay and for the jobs they hold.

Here, the court strongly rebukes Noem for ignoring such data:

[T]he Secretary cannot just throw verifiably inapposite or false assertion after inapposite or false assertion—no matter how inflammatory—against the wall and hope that something sticks. Nor can she lawfully fail to consider the very factors, such as economic considerations, that she herself has determined are relevant simply because they do not support her preferred outcome.

On the Fifth Amendment front, the judge’s conclusions are unsparing.

“[T]he Court finds that Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on their claim that anti-black and anti-Haitian animus motivated Secretary Noem’s decision to terminate Haiti’s TPS designation,” the opinion goes on. “[E]ven if the Court ignored President Trump’s statements altogether, Secretary Noem’s expressed animus towards nonwhite foreigners would support a stay. Taken together, the record strongly suggests that Secretary Noem’s decision to terminate Haiti’s TPS designation was motivated, at least in part, by racial animus.”

The opinion ends by reformulating a cliche:

There is an old adage among lawyers. If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts. If you have the law on your side, pound the law. If you have neither, pound the table. Secretary Noem, the record to-date shows, does not have the facts on her side—or at least has ignored them. Does not have the law on her side—or at least has ignored it. Having neither and bringing the adage into the 21st century, she pounds X…

Kristi Noem has a First Amendment right to call immigrants killers, leeches, entitlement junkies, and any other inapt name she wants. Secretary Noem, however, is constrained by both our Constitution and the APA to apply faithfully the facts to the law in implementing the TPS program. The record to-date shows she has yet to do that.

The court’s order puts a stay on Noem’s efforts to strip Haitians of TPS status until the litigation concludes, or until Reyes rules otherwise.