A federal judge whose adverse rulings against President Donald Trump have frequently been overturned blocked the Trump administration from ending temporary protected status for Ethiopians on Wednesday, weeks ahead of Supreme Court arguments on whether the president can end TPS for two other countries.
District Judge Brian Murphy, a nominee of former President Joe Biden, found in his ruling that the administration did not follow proper process in terminating TPS for Ethiopia, halting the Trump administration from ending the status for people from the African country.
“Fundamental to this case—and indeed to our constitutional system—is the principle that the will of the President does not supersede that of Congress,” Murphy wrote in his ruling. “Presidential whims do not and cannot supplant agencies’ statutory obligations.
“The Constitution requires that the President ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,’ a directive which includes enforcing the laws in accordance with congressional commands. And administrative agencies granted executive authority by Congress may operate only within the bounds Congress has set. Yet, in this case, Defendants have disregarded both that foundational principle and the statutory scheme enacted by Congress.”
The judge found the Department of Homeland Security’s decision unlawful because, he said, it was predetermined and did not consult “appropriate agencies.”
Federal law asserts that the homeland security secretary’s decision on whether to revoke or extend TPS is unreviewable by courts. But Murphy, like several other judges nominated by Democrats, has thwarted Trump’s effort to end TPS by determining that the process that led to the determination can be reviewed.
The Supreme Court twice halted a lower court’s attempt to block the Trump administration from ending TPS for Venezuela via its emergency docket last year. In both cases, the justices did not elaborate on their rationale for allowing TPS to be revoked in the interim. The Supreme Court elevated a pair of TPS cases, involving the revocation of the status from Haiti and Syria, from the emergency docket to its merits docket for arguments later this month, but did not allow the lifting of the lower courts’ blocks in the interim.
Several judges have said that because the Supreme Court did not explain its reasoning in either order lifting the blocks on TPS, they are not running afoul of any specific guidance from the justices. Murphy made a similar assertion in his Wednesday ruling, also claiming that the Supreme Court not immediately lifting the blocks on ending TPS for Haiti and Syria before justices hear those arguments strengthens his ruling.
“Note that the Supreme Court gave no explanation for its recent stays of related, but not identical, district court orders,” Murphy wrote in his ruling. “Nor did the Supreme Court explain its subsequent decision not to stay the district court orders in two consolidated cases in which the Supreme Court granted certiorari before judgment less than a month ago.
“Therefore, there is no reason to assume that the Supreme Court is of the opinion that section 1254a bars district courts from considering Plaintiffs’ claims, or that section 1252(f)(1) bars district courts from granting relief under the APA. If anything, that the Supreme Court most recently declined to stay the district court orders suggests that the Supreme Court believes district courts are authorized to consider such claims.”
The Trump administration has been on the wrong end of several of Murphy’s rulings since last year, most notably in litigation over the policy of deporting illegal immigrants to third countries, or countries other than their country of origin. Murphy was slapped down by the Supreme Court twice on the emergency docket last year when he tried to block third-country deportations, with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit stopping his ruling earlier this year when he again attempted to halt the policy.
Murphy’s ruling marks the latest lower-court loss on the issue over the past year, which the Supreme Court will take up later this month. Oral arguments in the consolidated cases Mullin v. Doe and Trump v. Miot are scheduled for April 29 at the high court.
In its brief ahead of arguments at the Supreme Court, the Justice Department claimed the parade of lawsuits challenging the revocation of TPS illustrates “the problems with subverting Congress’s choice” of making the homeland security secretary’s determination of whether to continue TPS for different countries unreviewable by the courts.
“The district courts second-guessed virtually every aspect of the Secretary’s decisionmaking, from her supposed failure to adequately consult the Department of State, to her putative misapprehension of country conditions and the national interest, to her supposedly preordaining outcomes,” DOJ attorneys wrote in the brief, calling the district court rulings “erroneous.”
APPELLATE COURT REJECTIONS IN TRUMP CASES HIGHLIGHT MOUNTING TENSION IN THE JUDICIARY
“Congress forbade federal courts to second-guess TPS determinations, no matter whether courts would cavil with the final outcome, the Secretary’s decisional process, the substantive reasoning, or something else,” the brief reads. “Any contrary approach would reduce Congress’s robust judicial-review bar to a minor speedbump while installing district courts as the ultimate foreign-policy superintendents of temporary status.”
After the Supreme Court hears arguments on April 29 in the TPS cases, the justices are expected to issue a ruling in the consolidated cases by the end of June. The Supreme Court’s ruling is expected to have wide ramifications for the future of lawsuits against an administration’s attempt to end TPS for different countries.