Judge blocks Trump effort to remove South Sudan deportation protections | Donald Trump News

Trump seeks to end South Sudan’s protected status, saying the country no longer poses a danger to those returning.

A federal judge has blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from removing temporary deportation protections for South Sudanese citizens living in the United States.

U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley in Boston, Massachusetts, granted an emergency request Tuesday in a lawsuit filed by several South Sudanese nationals and an immigrant rights group.

The order prevents South Sudanese citizens’ Temporary Protected Status (TPS) from expiring on January 5, as requested by the Trump administration.

The lawsuit, led by African‍Communities Together, accuses the U.S. Department of Homeland Security of acting illegally in its efforts to deprive South Sudanese citizens of TPS, a U.S. immigration status granted to citizens of countries facing natural disasters, conflict or other extraordinary circumstances that could make it unsafe to return to their home countries.

The status was initially granted to South Sudan in 2011, when the country officially separated from Sudan. It has been renewed several times amid repeated struggles, widespread displacement and regional instability.

​The status allows eligible individuals to work and receive temporary protection from deportation.

The lawsuit further alleged that the Trump administration exposed South Sudanese citizens to deportation to a country facing what is widely considered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, in an advisory issued on November 5, argued that the country no longer qualifies for TPS.

“With peace regained in South Sudan, their demonstrated commitment to ensuring the safe reintegration of returning nationals and diplomatic relations improving, the time has come to conclude what was always intended to be “a temporary designation,” she said, appearing to refer to a fragile 2018 peace deal.

The statement contradicts the findings of a group of United Nations experts, who wrote in a report to the U.N. Security Council in November that “while the contours of the conflict may be altered, the resulting human suffering has remained unchanged.”

“The ongoing conflict and aerial bombardments, coupled with flooding and the influx of returnees and refugees from Sudan, have led to near-record levels of food insecurity, with pockets of famine reported in some of the communities most affected by the renewed fighting,” it added.

The Trump administration is increasingly targeting TPS as part of its immigration crackdown and mass deportation campaign.

He also moved to end TPS for foreign nationals from countries including Syria, Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba and Nicaragua, leading to several legal challenges.

He also sought to expel individuals to African countrieseven if they have no connection.