New York At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Leti­tia James on Wednes­day led a coali­tion of 15 oth­er at­tor­neys gen­er­al in tak­ing ac­tion to de­fend Tem­po­rary Pro­tect­ed Sta­tus (TPS) for hun­dreds of thou­sands of Hait­ian and Venezue­lan im­mi­grants, in­clud­ing many who have lived, worked, and raised their fam­i­lies in the Unit­ed States for years.

In an am­i­cus brief filed with the Unit­ed States Court of Ap­peals for the Ninth Cir­cuit, James and the coali­tion urge the court to up­hold a low­er court’s rul­ing that found the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion’s ter­mi­na­tion of TPS un­law­ful.

“Hait­ian and Venezue­lan TPS hold­ers con­tribute im­mense­ly to our com­mu­ni­ties by start­ing busi­ness­es, rais­ing fam­i­lies, and at­tend­ing our schools,” said l James. 

“This ad­min­is­tra­tion’s cru­el at­tempt to sud­den­ly and un­law­ful­ly end their le­gal sta­tus will threat­en hun­dreds of thou­sands of im­mi­grants who fled vi­o­lence and op­pres­sion to build a bet­ter life in this coun­try. I will keep fight­ing to pro­tect the rights of our im­mi­grant com­mu­ni­ties,” she af­firmed.

James said de­spite on­go­ing hu­man­i­tar­i­an crises in both Haiti and Venezuela, and warn­ings from the US State De­part­ment con­cern­ing the two coun­tries’ safe­ty, the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion at­tempt­ed to ter­mi­nate TPS pro­tec­tions for Hait­ian and Venezue­lan im­mi­grants short­ly af­ter the Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion ex­tend­ed them.

“If al­lowed to take ef­fect, this sud­den ter­mi­na­tion of le­gal sta­tus would cause chaos and con­fu­sion for hun­dreds of thou­sands of peo­ple across the coun­try – many of whom fled vi­o­lence, op­pres­sion, and pover­ty to build a life in the Unit­ed States,” she said.

“With­out TPS, Hait­ian and Venezue­lan im­mi­grants would lose their work au­tho­ri­sa­tion and could face de­por­ta­tion, en­dan­ger­ing them­selves and their fam­i­lies,” she added.

l James ar­gued that the Unit­ed States Dis­trict Court for the North­ern Dis­trict of Cal­i­for­nia cor­rect­ly found that the ad­min­is­tra­tion’s ac­tion was “ar­bi­trary, capri­cious, and con­trary to the law.

“Re­vok­ing TPS would cause im­mense eco­nom­ic, pub­lic health, and pub­lic safe­ty dis­rup­tions in com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try,” the coali­tion said.

In their brief, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al James and the coali­tion as­sert that hun­dreds of thou­sands of US cit­i­zens who live with a Hait­ian or Venezue­lan TPS hold­er would be put at risk.

In 2022, they point out that 54,000 US cit­i­zen chil­dren and 80,000 US cit­i­zen adults lived with a Venezue­lan TPS hold­er, and about 87,000 US cit­i­zen chil­dren and 116,000 US cit­i­zen adults lived with a Hait­ian TPS hold­er.

“If the ad­min­is­tra­tion suc­cess­ful­ly re­vokes TPS, par­ents would be faced with an im­pos­si­ble choice to ei­ther re­turn to their home coun­try and leave their fam­i­lies be­hind, take their US cit­i­zen chil­dren with them to a dan­ger­ous coun­try they do not know, or stay in the US with­out le­gal sta­tus and risk fear, un­cer­tain­ty and de­por­ta­tion at any mo­ment,” the coali­tion ar­gues.

The coali­tion al­so high­lights the sig­nif­i­cant eco­nom­ic con­tri­bu­tions of Hait­ian and Venezue­lan TPS hold­ers.

Na­tion­wide, the coali­tion says Venezue­lan TPS hold­ers con­tribute over US$11 bil­lion to the econ­o­my each year.

The coali­tion al­so says that Hait­ian TPS hold­ers con­tribute US$4.4 bil­lion an­nu­al­ly to the US econ­o­my.

While in New York, TPS house­holds earned US$2.3 bil­lion in in­come, paid US$348.9 mil­lion in fed­er­al tax­es, US$305.5 mil­lion in state and lo­cal tax­es, and con­tributed US$1.6 bil­lion in spend­ing pow­er in 2023 alone.

“Re­vok­ing TPS for these com­mu­ni­ties would leave many with­out work au­tho­ri­sa­tion, jeop­ar­dis­ing their abil­i­ty to pro­vide for their fam­i­lies,” the coali­tion says.

“In ad­di­tion, the em­ploy­er-spon­sored health care that they and their fam­i­lies re­ly on would al­so be at risk, pos­ing sig­nif­i­cant pub­lic health threats,” the coali­tion adds.

Join­ing James in fil­ing Wednes­day’s brief are the at­tor­neys gen­er­al of Cal­i­for­nia, Col­orado, Delaware, Hawaii, Illi­nois, Maine, Mary­land, Mass­a­chu­setts, Min­neso­ta, Neva­da, New Jer­sey, Ore­gon, Ver­mont, Wash­ing­ton, and the Dis­trict of Co­lum­bia.

CMC/nk/kb/2025

NEW YORK, Nov. 13, CMC –