US judge blocks Trump from canceling legal status for Venezuelans, Haitians

Illustration shows U.S. flag and Judge gavel

(Reuters) -A federal judge in San Francisco ruled on Friday that President Donald Trump’s administration violated federal law by moving to cancel temporary protections from deportation granted to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans and Haitians living in the United States.

U.S. District Judge Edward Chen said that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem lacked the authority to cancel the Biden-era program, known as Temporary Protected Status, and that it was “arbitrary and capricious” to do so.

(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York)