By EFE
A federal judge in New York issued an emergency order requested by the Yemeni community that prevents the cancellation of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) that has allowed them to live and work in the country until the class action lawsuit they filed against Donald Trump’s Government is resolved in that court.
The plaintiffsseven Yemenis with TPS or pending applications, represent a group of 3,235 people enrolled in that program, some for more than a decade.
If the judge had not issued the emergency order, they would have been forced to return to a country where a decade-long civil war, exacerbated by foreign intervention, has caused one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, they highlight in a statement.
“Several of them would have likely suffered persecution by Houthi rebels,” highlights a statement from their legal representatives, the Asian American Education and Support Defense Fund and the Center for Constitutional Rights.
The Yemenis allege in their class action lawsuit that the government’s cancellation of the program violates the Administrative Procedure Law and the Fifth Amendment. TPS was due to expire at midnight on May 4.
“The decision to suspend the cancellation of TPS is a lifeline for my family; it is the moment when we could finally breathe a sigh of relief after months of anguish,” said Hadeel Doe, who filed the lawsuit under a pseudonym for his safety.
The US government designated Yemen for TPS in 2015 and has renewed it six times. The country is in such a state of instability that the US State Department recommends that US citizens not set foot on its territory under any circumstances, the lawyers recalled in the statement.
They also highlighted that according to the law, the Government can only cancel TPS when a country no longer meets the conditions for its designation. By withdrawing TPS from Yemenis, the Administration violated the Administrative Procedure Lawwhich governs the application of laws by federal agencies and requires them to comply with procedural requirements.
Furthermore, they claim that people were discriminated against based on their ethnic origin, religion and nationality, in violation of the constitutional guarantee of equality before the law.
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