Stephen Miller slams judge for 'judicial tyranny' over blocking Trump admin's removal of TPS for Venezuelans

On Monday, a US District judge in San Francisco, California, granted a motion to postpone the Trump administration’s attempt to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Venezuelan nationals. TPS was originally granted under a program implemented by the Biden administration. The lawsuit was filed by seven Venezuelan nationals who claimed the decision to revoke their TPS status was "racially biased."

Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller called the ruling “judicial tyranny.” He posted on X, “This is what we mean by judicial tyranny. Biden mass imported illegals from Venezuela, including criminals, gave them welfare and social security numbers. President Trump won an election promising to end the invasion. A rogue Marxist judge just ordered Biden’s amnesty continued.”

According to Fox News, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem had previously announced actions to strip approximately 350,000 Venezuelan nationals of their protection under the TPS program, which had allowed them to live and work temporarily in the US.

However, the court claimed that by Noem stripping the Venezuelans of their TPS status, she is subjecting them to "possible imminent deportation" back to their country, which has been classified by the US State Department as a "Level 4: Do Not Travel" country due to the "high risk of wrongful detentions, terrorism, kidnapping, the arbitrary enforcement of local laws, crime, civil unrest, [and] poor health infrastructure."

The Biden administration’s temporary protections of Venezuelan nationals have been in place since 2021.

US District Judge Edward Chen of the San Francisco Federal Court said, "The Court finds that the Secretary’s action threatens to: inflict irreparable harm on hundreds of thousands of persons whose lives, families, and livelihoods will be severely disrupted, cost the United States billions in economic activity, and injure public health and safety in communities throughout the United States." 

Chen added that the US government has failed to identify "any real countervailing harm" in continuing TPS for Venezuelan beneficiaries. He continued, "Plaintiffs have also shown they will likely succeed in demonstrating that the actions taken by the Secretary are unauthorized by law, arbitrary and capricious, and motivated by unconstitutional animus. For these reasons, the Court grants Plaintiffs’ request to postpone the challenged actions pending final adjudication of the merits of this case."

Under the Biden administration, Venezuelan migrants were allowed to fly directly to the US after applying from abroad if they had American sponsors, under a policy that was designed to open pathways to legal immigration. Immigrants could then remain in the country for two years under a temporary immigration status. The program first applied to Venezuelans before it was expanded to Cuba, Haiti, and Nicaragua. President Donald Trump suspended the program when he returned to the Oval Office in January.