Judge blocks Trump from ending TPS for 2,800 Yemenis

On May 1, 2026, U.S. District Judge DHDale Ho issued a preliminary injunction blocking the Trump administration from terminating Temporary Protected Status for approximately 2,810 Yemeni nationals. The case, Hadeel Doe et al. v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, was brought by 16 Yemeni nationals suing in the Southern District of 🗽New York. The ruling came three days before a May 4 deadline when Yemen's TPS was set to expire, after which Yemeni TPS holders would have had 60 days to leave or face arrest and deportation.

Ho found that DHS "short-circuited" the review process, "violating the TPS statute and frustrating the public accountability that the Administrative Procedure Act is designed to protect." He wrote that Yemeni TPS holders "are not killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies. They are ordinary, law-abiding people who have been granted status to be here because the Government has repeatedly determined, in accordance with the TPS statute, that Yemen is subject to an ongoing armed conflict." The challenge was filed under the .

Temporary Protected Status is a humanitarian protection established by the and codified at . Congress created TPS to protect nationals from countries experiencing ongoing armed conflict, natural disasters, or other extraordinary conditions that make return dangerous. TPS holders receive renewable work authorization and protection from deportation for the duration of their designated period.

The DHS Secretary has authority to designate, extend, or terminate TPS for specific countries. Congress requires the Secretary to follow a mandatory process before any termination: reviewing current country conditions, providing advance notice to TPS holders, and formally determining that conditions have improved enough to permit safe return. Skipping these steps exposes the termination to APA challenge.

Former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem terminated Yemen's TPS designation without completing the country conditions review Congress requires. Judge Ho found that Noem "likely violated the law" by bypassing this mandatory procedural step, making the termination vulnerable to reversal under the APA's "arbitrary and capricious" review standard.

The APA requires federal agencies to follow their own legally mandated rules and to provide reasoned explanations for significant policy changes. When an agency skips required procedures, courts can set aside the action as unlawful regardless of the administration's underlying policy goals.

Yemen has been in civil war since 2015, when Houthi rebels seized the capital Sanaa and forced the internationally recognized government into exile. The the conflict has killed more than 150,000 people and displaced over 4 million Yemenis, causing one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.

The Houthis began attacking commercial shipping and U.S. Navy vessels in the Red Sea in 2023, drawing the United States into direct military engagement. President Trump launched an intensive air campaign against Houthi military targets in early 2025 and reached a ceasefire in May 2026. That ceasefire halted U.S. strikes but did not end the underlying civil war or restore civilian safety in Yemen.

Yemen is one of 13 countries whose TPS the Trump administration has revoked since January 2025. The full list includes Haiti, Afghanistan, Ukraine, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Nepal, Cameroon, Myanmar, South Sudan, Sudan, Venezuela, and Yemen. According to , roughly 1.1 million people hold TPS across all designated countries.

The Yemen termination directly affected 2,810 active TPS holders and an additional 425 people with pending TPS applications. The legal standard Judge Ho applied could support challenges to TPS terminations for other countries. Immigration advocacy organizations had already filed or were preparing challenges to multiple TPS terminations using the same procedural arguments.

The Supreme Court is considering the Trump administration's effort to end TPS for Syria and Haiti in a consolidated case. A ruling is expected by the end of June or early July 2026. The outcome will likely determine whether the administration can proceed with all 13 TPS terminations without completing the review process Congress requires.

If the Supreme Court rules for the administration, it could undercut the legal basis for Judge Ho's injunction. If it rules against the administration, it would confirm that courts can block TPS terminations that skip the mandatory country conditions review, potentially protecting TPS holders across all 13 designated countries.

TPS does not create a path to permanent residency or citizenship. TPS holders remain in a temporary legal status that depends entirely on the DHS Secretary's ongoing designation of their home country. Congress has never enacted a statutory pathway allowing long-term TPS holders to adjust to permanent resident status.

Many current TPS holders have lived in the United States for decades, raised U.S.-citizen children, and built careers and businesses. For these individuals, the difference between TPS continuation and termination is not just a change in legal status — it is a potential permanent separation from the lives they have built in the United States.

The Trump administration has argued that TPS designations were originally intended as short-term emergency measures and that the executive branch has broad discretion to end them when it judges that conditions have changed. It has also argued that courts should defer to executive assessments of foreign country conditions rather than second-guessing those policy judgments.

Judge Ho rejected these arguments at the preliminary injunction stage, finding that the mandatory procedural requirements in the TPS statute are not subject to executive discretion and that courts have authority to enforce them. The case now proceeds to a full merits hearing.