Judge blocks Trump move to end protections for Yemenis temporarily

Thousands of Yemeni nationals kept their jobs and, for now, their legal footing in the United States after a federal judge in Manhattan blocked the Trump administration from ending Temporary Protected Status for Yemen next week. The order from U.S. District Judge Dale Ho paused a change that would have stripped work authorization and exposed recipients to deportation risk as soon as May 4.

The case centers on people who have built lives in the United States under a program first granted to Yemen on September 3, 2015, and renewed repeatedly as war and collapse deepened at home. The plaintiffs said more than 3,200 Yemeni nationals depended on TPS, including about 2,810 current holders and another 425 with pending applications. Seven named plaintiffs, all using pseudonyms for safety, asked the court to stop what they described as a sudden cutoff that would force families to choose between leaving the country, staying without lawful status, or returning to a nation the U.S. government still warns Americans not to enter.

Among them is Hadeel Doe, who said in a filing that return to Yemen would put her child at grave risk and that her high-risk pregnancy could not be treated in Yemen’s collapsed health system. Advocacy materials in the case said Yemen remains engulfed in a decade-long civil war, one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with shortages of electricity, health care, water, sanitation and food. The U.S. State Department maintains a Level 4, Do Not Travel advisory for the country.

The administration moved to end the protection after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced the termination on February 13, 2026. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said the designation would end on May 4, 2026, 60 days after the notice was published in the Federal Register on March 3. DHS said it reviewed country conditions and consulted other agencies before concluding Yemen no longer met the legal standard for TPS.

Judge Ho’s temporary order did not resolve the larger question of whether the administration can rescind humanitarian protections in this case. It did, however, stop the policy from taking effect immediately and signaled that the White House’s attempt to unwind TPS will continue to meet resistance in federal court. The lawsuit was filed in the Southern District of New York and was framed by advocates as part of a broader rollback of TPS across multiple countries, a fight that will shape how much room administrations have to end protections Congress created for people fleeing crisis.