(CN) - A group suing the Trump administration over its termination of protections offered to Venezuelan immigrants can file a supplemental complaint challenging the administration's attempt to end protected status for Haitians, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.
U.S. District Judge Edward Chen waved away the Department of Justice's concerns that a supplemental complaint would be excessively burdensome on the government.
"Defendants will have to engage in all this discovery anew," Department of Justice attorney Lauren Bryant said. "It would make a mess of this litigation to bring in a brand new claim."
But Chen said he didn't see what difference it made whether or not he allowed the plaintiff, the National TPS Alliance, to file the supplemental complaint.
If he denied the motion, the Barack Obama appointee said, the plaintiffs would simply file a new separate complaint, which would almost certainly be deemed a related case, and it would be back before him anyway.
"It's not gonna delay trial because there's been no trial set," Chen said. "I don't know what the difference is to the government."
President Joe Biden granted Temporary Protected Status to Haitians migrants in 2024, giving them the designation applied to nationals of certain countries where violence or economic duress make deportation difficult or unsafe. Venezuelans make up the largest number of such status holders in the nation.
The Trump administration has already tried to end such protection for Haitian migrants in February shortly after taking office, but a federal judge in Brooklyn blocked the order.
In November, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced, again, that government would be ending humanitarian protections for roughly 353,000 Haitians living in the U.S., having determined there were "no extraordinary and temporary conditions" in the country, which is plagued by gang violence and civil unrest.
Jessica Bansal, an attorney for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, representing the National TPS Alliance, argued that the facts of the Trump administration's two vacaturs - for Venezuelans and Haitians - were fairly similar.
"The text of the decision, Bansal said, "is essentially word-for-word the same."
Chen granted the alliance's motion, adding, "Maybe it's burdensome, but that would happen anyway. I would likely coordinate the cases, maybe even consolidate them. There's no difference."
The National TPS Alliance will now file their supplemental complaint, and engage in new discovery.
The National TPS Alliance is already suing the Trump administration, in a federal court in San Francisco, over the government's attempt to remove protections from Venezuelan immigrants. Chen has declared, more than once, that the Trump administration acted illegally, but the case is awaiting an appeal to the Ninth Circuit.
Chen found in September that Noem sidestepped review requirements and called her actions unprecedented and illegal.
The Trump administration has dismissed the claims, arguing that Noem's actions were based on reasoned policy determinations. The Justice Department faulted Chen for stepping into the case, claiming that the ruling interfered with executive branch prerogatives and delayed sensitive policy decisions.
The U.S. Supreme Court has previously stayed Chen's rulings temporarily blocking the federal government's actions, without explanation, using the so-called "shadow docket" or emergency docket.
Source: Courthouse News Service
