“These ‘generalized assertions of injury’ are insufficient to support a stay pending appeal,” the appellate court wrote. “The government must demonstrate an injury that is ‘both certain and great,’ and ‘of such imminence that there is a clear and present need for equitable relief to prevent irreparable harm.’”
But the legal saga is far from over. The federal government appears likely to appeal the decision to the U.S Supreme Court, and government lawyers already have asked the nation’s highest court in a separate case to issue a ruling that they hope will affect all legal challenges to TPS terminations, including the litigation focused on Haiti’s designation.
The administration says it wants the Supreme Court to rule about whether Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s TPS determinations are final and not subject to judicial review.
In a 2-1 decision, the Court of Appeals denied the Trump administration’s emergency motion for a stay pending appeal on the lower court’s decision allowing TPS to continue.
The appellate court’s order says the plaintiffs in the case — five Haitian nationals, including one Springfield resident — would face “devastating” consequences if Haiti’s TPS is cancelled, including risks of detention, deportation, family separation and the loss of the right to work.
Plaintiffs, if deported to Haiti, could be victims of violence in a country that is dealing with a “collapsing rule of law” and a dangerous lack of medical care, the decision states.
Secretary Noem has said that conditions in Haiti do not prevent the safe return of citizens to the Caribbean country.
But the State Department’s own website says that Americans should not travel to Haiti for any reason because of threats of kidnapping, crime, terrorist activity, civil unrest and limited health care.
Haiti has been under a State of Emergency since March 2024.
Haitian TPS holders and attorneys for the plaintiffs in the Haiti TPS case say that the TPS program is meant to shield foreign nationals in the U.S. from having to return to very dangerous conditions that put their lives at risk.
This story will be updated.
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