Donald Trump speaks to the media in Washington, DC. Joshua
Roberts/Getty Images/AFP
A US court of appeals on Monday gave the green light for
the Trump administration to expel hundreds of thousands
of nationals from four countries who had been granted protected
status for humanitarian reasons.
In a 2-1 ruling, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said a federal
court in San Fransisco had erred when it issued an injunction
protecting more than 300,000 immigrants from El Salvador, Haiti,
Nicaragua and Sudan from being deported from the US.
President Donald Trump’s administration has sought to end
the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) granted to these people — who
have several hundred thousand American children — on the grounds
that their countries which were previously wracked by unrest were
now safe.
Monday’s ruling will not result in the immediate deportation of
TPS holders, the American Civil Liberties Union said, as the
challengers have vowed to file an appeal.
Writing for the majority, Judge Consuelo Callahan disagreed with
arguments that a bid to terminate TPS was influenced
by Trump’s alleged anti-immigrant bias shown through his
controversial remarks, including a 2018 comment in which he
referred to “shithole countries.”
“Plaintiffs fail to present even ‘serious questions’ on the
merits of their claim that the Secretaries’ TPS terminations were
improperly influenced by the President’s ‘animus against non-white,
non-European immigrants,’” Callahan wrote, referring to US-c itizen
children of TPS holders who are behind the case brought before the
court.
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The court’s majority added that while it did not “condone the
offensive and disparaging nature” of Trump’s remarks, there
was no proof his “alleged racial animus was a motivating factor in
the TPS decisions.”
A statement by the American Civil Liberties Union said Monday’s
ruling will lead to families who have lived lawfully in the US to
be torn apart and vowed to fight the decision.
“The president’s vile statements about TPS holders made
perfectly clear that his administration acted out of racial
animus,” Ahilan Arulanantham, senior counsel of the American Civil
Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California, said in a
statement. “The Constitution does not permit policy to be driven by
racism.”
Yael Schacher, an immigration historian and senior advocate at
Refugees International, also denounced the ruling.
“Many of those with TPS have lived in the United States for more
than two decades and are serving as essential workers on the front
lines of the pandemic response,” she said.
“The pain and fear caused by this decision will be
felt deeply in communities across the United States, as long-time
residents living with TPS are now left in limbo and
face the risk of being separated from their American-born
children.”
The ACLU noted that TPS holders from the countries concerned
will be permitted to maintain their status until at least February,
and those from El Salvador until at least November.
AFP
Read more https://swordpress.com.ng/2020/09/15/us-court-sides-with-trump-on-deporting-immigrants/