Visa Lawyer Blog

Articles Posted in Court Decisions

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tingey-injury-law-firm-nSpj-Z12lX0-unsplash-scaledThe Trump administration has fired additional U.S. immigration judges, including two who recently blocked deportation efforts involving pro-Palestinian university students, according to a Reuters report.

The dismissals are part of a broader wave of removals within the immigration court system, which has already seen more than 100 judges fired since January 2025. The move reflects an ongoing effort to reshape the immigration judiciary by replacing experienced judges with those more aligned with hard-line immigration enforcement.

Among those dismissed were judges Roopal Patel and Nina Froes, both of whom were appointed during the Biden administration and were still within their probationary periods. They had recently issued rulings halting deportation proceedings in high-profile student cases.

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A recent federal court decision has provided temporary relief for Ethiopian nationals in the United States who rely on Temporary Protected Status (TPS). The ruling marks a setback for the Trump administration’s efforts to roll back humanitarian immigration protections.

Key Developments

A federal judge in Massachusetts has postponed the termination of TPS for Ethiopians, finding that the government did not follow proper legal procedures when attempting to end the designation. The court emphasized that the decision did not adhere to the process required by Congress, raising concerns about how the termination was handled.

Under federal law, TPS is available to individuals whose home countries have experienced natural disasters, armed conflict, or other extraordinary events, providing eligible migrants with work authorization and temporary protection from deportation.

TPS was originally granted to Ethiopians in 2022 due to armed conflict and humanitarian conditions in the country. The designation allows eligible individuals to live and work in the United States without fear of deportation.

Who Is Affected

More than 5,000 Ethiopian nationals currently benefit from TPS protections. Without the court’s intervention, many could have lost their work authorization and faced potential removal.

What Happens Next

The ruling does not permanently preserve TPS for Ethiopians. Instead, it temporarily blocks the termination while legal proceedings continue. The government may still attempt to end the designation if it follows proper procedures or prevails in court.

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wander-works-MAgz-27IO68-unsplash-scaledThe Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for hundreds of thousands of Haitians living in the United States. TPS is a humanitarian program that allows people from countries affected by disasters or conflict to live and work in the U.S. legally, without fear of deportation.

This move comes as part of a broader effort to scale back immigration protections. The Supreme Court has already allowed the administration to reduce TPS protections for Venezuelan migrants, while a similar request involving Syrian immigrants is still pending.

Haiti was first granted TPS in 2010 after a catastrophic earthquake, and the designation has been extended several times since. The administration set a termination date of February 3, 2026, arguing that conditions in Haiti have improved enough to allow the return of TPS holders.

Last December, five Haitian nationals challenged the decision, seeking to block the termination. A federal district court sided with them last month, finding that the decision to end protections may have been influenced in part by racial bias. The Justice Department appealed, but a divided three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., refused to halt the lower court’s ruling.

In an emergency filing with the Supreme Court, Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that the lower courts had overstepped, interfering in “an area of wide Executive Branch latitude.”

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owantana-donald-trump-2333743_1280The Trump administration’s “Gold Card” visa program, which lets ultra-wealthy immigrants obtain permanent U.S. residency in exchange for a $1 million gift, is now the target of a federal lawsuit challenging its legality.

The lawsuit filed by the American Association of University Professors argues that the program is unlawful, claiming it violates the Administrative Procedure Act, the Immigration and Nationality Act, and was implemented without statutory authority.

Instead of calling on Congress to establish a new visa category, President Trump unilaterally created the Gold Card program by executive order. The order instructs federal agencies to utilize visa numbers from the existing EB-1 “extraordinary ability” and EB-2 “exceptional ability” green card categories, which have been specifically reserved by Congress for highly skilled individuals at the top of their field.

Under the Gold Card program, a $1 million payment by an individual—or $2 million paid by a corporation on their behalf—is treated as proof that the applicant satisfies the EB-1 or EB-2 visa criteria.

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judge-10029829_1280On January 28th a federal judge in Nebraska ruled that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) must approve an EB-1A petition that was previously denied, based on the court’s finding that the “final merits requirement,” was unlawfully adopted by USCIS.

What Happened in the EB-1A Case?

On January 28, 2026, a U.S. District Court judge in Nebraska issued a decision in Mukherji v. Miller in favor of an EB-1A applicant who challenged the denial of her I-140 petition. The case focused on USCIS’s practice of applying a “final merits determination,” an additional layer of review that goes beyond evaluating whether an applicant meets the regulatory criteria for the EB-1A classification.

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Nearly 200 immigrants, including six from Massachusetts, have filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. government over a sudden pause in processing green cards, citizenship applications, and asylum petitions. The pause was announced by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) shortly after the Trump administration expanded travel restrictions to 39 countries—20 of them facing partial restrictions.

Why USCIS Paused Green Card Processing for Travel Ban Countries

USCIS has paused the processing of green card applications for individuals from countries subject to the travel ban to ensure that all applicants are thoroughly vetted before being allowed to enter or remain in the United States. The agency stated that the pause allows it to review and strengthen security screenings for people from the affected countries. According to the Department of Homeland Security, the temporary halt is intended to maximize the effectiveness of background checks and other vetting procedures, with the goal of protecting public safety while the agency implements the updated immigration restrictions.

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cityscape-5351686_1280A federal judge has issued a court order requiring that immigrants detained at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) processing center in downtown Los Angeles be granted access to their attorneys in a timely manner.

The ruling comes after lawyers reported that detainees were frequently denied phone access, had in-person meetings canceled, and faced pressure to sign legal documents without private counsel.

The B‑18 facility, originally designed as a short-term holding space, lacks basic amenities such as beds, showers, and adequate medical services. Advocates say ICE has effectively turned it into a long-term detention site, restricting detainees’ ability to communicate with the outside world.

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On November 12, 2025, a federal court ruling in the case Moody et al. v. Mayorkas et al. granted relief to new investors in the EB-5 program by halting the increased application fees introduced by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) on April 1, 2024.

What fees were increased?

Here’s a quick breakdown of the fee changes that were challenged:

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judge-3008038_1280This week, the Justice Department announced that it has hired 36 new immigration judges — 11 permanent and 25 temporary — for the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), a key agency that handles immigration court proceedings in deportation cases.

What’s happening?

The hiring comes after several months of layoffs among immigration judges occurring earlier this year. In the past 10 months, EOIR fired more than 125 judges, causing delays in immigration court proceedings across the country.

The courts in Massachusetts and Illinois were among the most affected by these departures. The good news is these newly hired judges will begin serving across 16 states nationwide.

Who are the new judges?

  • The permanent hires largely come from federal‑government backgrounds: some from EOIR itself, some from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and others who previously trained agents or worked as asylum officers.
  • The temporary hires include military attorneys drawn from the Marines, Navy, Air Force, and Army.
  • These changes accompany a modification in DOJ policy that lowers the qualification requirements for temporary judges—prior immigration law experience is no longer mandatory.

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us-1978465_1280Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a troubling decision that could strip legal status from hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans currently living in the United States under Temporary Protected Status (TPS).

On Friday, the Court granted the Trump administration’s request to halt a lower court ruling that found the administration’s cancellation of TPS protections for Venezuelans unlawful. The unsigned order from the Court effectively allows the government to proceed, for now, with its plans to revoke temporary protections that had shielded Venezuelan nationals from deportation and granted them employment authorization.

TPS was created in 1990 as a humanitarian safeguard for individuals whose home countries are experiencing extraordinary crises such as armed conflict, environmental disasters, or other temporary but severe disruptions. Venezuela was designated for TPS in 2021 under President Biden, in response to the country’s severe economic collapse, widespread human rights abuses, and political instability.

Since then, approximately 300,000 Venezuelans have relied on that protection to live and work legally in the U.S., building lives, paying taxes, and raising families.

Trump Administration Moves to Strip Venezuela’s TPS Designation

But the political tides have shifted. When the Trump administration returned to office, it appointed Kristi Noem as Secretary of Homeland Security. Earlier this year, Noem moved to revoke Venezuela’s TPS designation, arguing that conditions in the country had improved and that continuing the program was no longer in the national interest. That decision sparked immediate legal challenges. A coalition of Venezuelan TPS recipients and advocacy groups sued, claiming the administration’s actions were arbitrary, rushed, and in violation of federal law.

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