Two federal judges have cleared the way for President Donald Trump’s administration to end temporary protections from deportation for people who have come to the United States from South Sudan and Myanmar.
Judges in Boston, Massachusetts and Chicago, Illinois, on Friday rejected last-ditch efforts by immigrant-rights advocates to maintain the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designations for the two countries after the US Supreme Court in June allowed the administration to end similar protections for thousands of people from Haiti and Syria.
TPS shields people from deportation and grants work authorisation when their home countries are affected by armed conflict, natural disasters or other extraordinary conditions. The terminations would end protections for about 232 South Sudanese nationals and roughly 4,000 people from Myanmar, according to the Reuters news agency.
The Supreme Court decision had limited lower courts’ ability to block the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) efforts to end TPS for people from roughly a dozen countries, arguing the executive branch maintained broad authority to make decisions on the programme.
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