Appeals Court Halts Afghan Deportations—For Now

The Trump administration’s move to strip TPS from nearly 12,000 Afghans is on pause. The legal clock is ticking, and so are lives.

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court issued a one-week stay late Monday to block the Trump administration from ending Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for nearly 12,000 Afghans, hours before the protections were set to expire. The decision buys time for Afghan nationals at risk of deportation and signals a rapidly developing legal fight over the administration’s efforts to narrow immigration protections.

The ruling by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals comes after the nonprofit advocacy group CASA filed an emergency appeal Monday, arguing that many of the Afghan nationals granted TPS had supported U.S. forces during the war and would face grave threats if returned to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had announced in May it would terminate Afghanistan’s TPS designation, asserting that “notable improvements” in the country’s security and economy justified ending deportation protections. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, in a Federal Register notice