Noem v. National TPS Alliance

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1 Cite as: 606 U. S. ____ (2025)
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 25A326
KRISTI NOEM, SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF
HOMELAND SECURITY,
ET AL. v. NATIONAL
TPS ALLIANCE,
ET AL.
ON APPLICATION FOR A STAY
[October 3, 2025]
In March of this year, the United States District Court
for the Northern District of California entered a prelimi-
nary order postponing the effective date of the Secretary of
Homeland Security’s decision to remove “temporary pro-
tected status” (TPS) from Venezuelan nationals living in
the United States. See 8 U. S. C. §1254a; 5 U. S. C. §705.
In May, this Court stayed that order while the Government
appealed. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth
Circuit ultimately affirmed the District Court’s preliminary
order. Last month, the District Court entered final judg-
ment in respondents’ favor, holding unlawful and setting
aside the Secretary’s actions effectuating her decision—
namely, her vacatur of a pending extension of TPS for Ven-
ezuelan nationals, and her termination of that status itself.
See 5 U. S. C. §706(2). (The District Court also concluded
that the Secretary unlawfully vacated a TPS extension for
Haitian nationals. The Government now seeks to stay the
portions of the District Court’s judgment pertaining to Ven-
ezuela, but not Haiti. See Application 7, n. 6.)
The application for stay presented to J
USTICE KAGAN and
by her referred to the Court is granted. Although the pos-
ture of the case has changed, the parties’ legal arguments
and relative harms generally have not. The same result
that we reached in May is appropriate here.

2 NOEM v. NATIONAL TPS ALLIANCE
J
ACKSON, J., dissenting
The September 5, 2025 order entered by the United
States District Court for the Northern District of California,
case No. 25–cv–1766, is stayed as to the Venezuela vacatur
and Venezuela termination, pending the disposition of the
Government’s appeal in the United States Court of Appeals
for the Ninth Circuit and disposition of a petition for a writ
of certiorari, if such writ is timely sought. Should the peti-
tion for a writ of certiorari be denied, this stay shall termi-
nate automatically. In the event certiorari is granted, the
stay shall terminate upon the sending down of the judg-
ment of this Court.
J
USTICE SOTOMAYOR and JUSTICE KAGAN would deny the
application.
J
USTICE JACKSON, dissenting from the grant of applica-
tion for stay.
On January 19, 2021, the United States Government told
Venezuelans living in the United States that Venezuela
was experiencing the “worst humanitarian crisis in the
Western Hemisphere in recent memory.”
1
A couple months
later, it said their country was in the midst of a “‘severe
political and economic crisis’” marked by “[e]conomic con-
traction,” “deepening poverty,” “a collapse in basic ser-
vices,” and “human rights abuses and repression.”
2
The
Government said substantially the same thing in
——————
1
Deferred Enforced Departure for Certain Venezuelans, Memorandum
of Jan. 19, 2021, 86 Fed. Reg. 6845 (2021).
2
See Designation of Venezuela for Temporary Protected Status and
Implementation of Employment Authorization for Venezuelans Covered
by Deferred Enforced Departure, 86 Fed. Reg. 13576 (2021).

3 Cite as: 606 U. S. ____ (2025)
J
ACKSON, J., dissenting
September 2022,
3
and again in October 2023,
4
and again in
January 2025.
5
These fact-based conclusions had legal import: They en-
titled eligible Venezuelans to temporary protected status
(TPS) under federal law. As a result, certain Venezuelans
were shielded from removal, permitted to work, and quali-
fied as lawfully present in the United States. See 8 U. S. C.
§§1254a(a)(1), (f )(4). By law, this protection was supposed
to last until at least October 2026.
6
When President Trump took office in late January 2025,
however, the Government quickly reversed course. The
TPS statute plainly states that a TPS designation shall re-
main effective until the expiration of its “most recent previ-
ous extension.” §1254a(b)(3)(B). But Secretary of Home-
land Security Kristi Noem announced a much nearer
termination date for some 300,000 Venezuelan TPS recipi-
ents: April 2025.
7
By now, our lower court colleagues have determined five
times over that this abrupt truncation of the TPS period
was unlawful or likely so.
8
They have done so in reasoned
and thoughtful written opinions—opinions that, in the nor-
mal course, we would get to parse, assess, and embrace or
reject, while fully explaining our reasoning.
——————
3
See Extension of the Designation of Venezuela for Temporary Pro-
tected Status, 87 Fed. Reg. 55026–55027 (2022).
4
See Extension and Redesignation of Venezuela for Temporary Pro-
tected Status, 88 Fed. Reg. 68132 (2023).
5
See Extension of the 2023 Designation of Venezuela for Temporary
Protected Status, 90 Fed. Reg. 5963–5966 (2025).
6
Id., at 5966 (extending Venezuela’s TPS designation for an 18-month
period ending October 2, 2026).
7
See Vacatur of 2025 Temporary Protected Status Decision for Vene-
zuela, 90 Fed. Reg. 8807; Termination of the Oct. 3, 2023 Designation of
Venezuela for Temporary Protected Status, 90 Fed. Reg. 9043–9044.
8
See 773 F. Supp. 3d 807 (ND Cal. 2025); 2025 WL 1019671 (ND Cal.,
Apr. 4, 2025); ___ F. 4th ___, 2025 WL 2487771 (CA9, Aug. 29, 2025); ___
F. Supp. 3d ___, 2025 WL 2578045 (ND Cal., Sept. 5, 2025); ___ F. 4th
___, 2025 WL 2661556 (CA9, Sept. 17, 2025).

4 NOEM v. NATIONAL TPS ALLIANCE
J
ACKSON, J., dissenting
The lower courts have also made a second considered
judgment on a different question: What should happen to
300,000 human beings while our colleagues on the Ninth
Circuit, and then perhaps we, do the job of judging? Should
those individuals get to remain in the United States, work-
ing legally, as the Government promised them a few short
months ago? Or should they be left vulnerable to job loss,
family separation, and deportation to a country the Govern-
ment determined in January was “experiencing ‘a complex,
serious and multidimensional humanitarian crisis’” to
which they could not “retur[n] in safety”? See 90 Fed. Reg.
5963, 5966.
Our lower court colleagues have already chosen the obvi-
ous—i.e., least disruptive and most humane—answer to
that question.
9
So, this stay application presents us with
an antecedent decision: whether the Government’s interest
in terminating TPS right now is so urgent that this Court,
rather than the able judges currently exercising jurisdiction
over the matter, should be the one to decide those individu-
als’ interim fate. See Noem v. Doe, 605 U. S. ___, ___–___
(2025) (J
ACKSON, J., dissenting from grant of application
for stay) (slip op., at 7–8); see also Magnum Import Co. v.
Coty, 262 U. S. 159, 164 (1923) (explaining that “this Court
requires an extraordinary showing” before it will override
the stay decision of a lower court, rendered “with a much
fuller knowledge [of the case] than we can have”). Only if
the Government demonstrates such a time-sensitive need
should we even consider vetoing the lower courts’ unani-
mous judgment about the most equitable interim status.
The Government has made no such showing. Yet, for the
second time in this same case, the Court grants it the
——————
9
See 2025 WL 1019671 (ND Cal., Apr. 4, 2025) (denying stay pending
appeal of postponement of agency action under 5 U. S. C. §705); ___ F.
4th ___, 2025 WL 2487771 (affirming postponement); 2025 WL 2617231
(ND Cal., Sept. 10, 2025) (denying stay pending appeal from final judg-
ment); ___ F. 4th ___, 2025 WL 2661556 (same).

5 Cite as: 606 U. S. ____ (2025)
J
ACKSON, J., dissenting
extraordinary relief it seeks. We once again eschew re-
straint—ignoring the need for exigency or any other pru-
dent threshold limitation on the exercise of our discretion—
and wordlessly override the considered judgments of our
colleagues. We once again use our equitable power (but not
our opinion-writing capacity) to allow this Administration
to disrupt as many lives as possible, as quickly as possible.
I view today’s decision as yet another grave misuse of our
emergency docket. This Court should have stayed its hand.
Having opted instead to join the fray, the Court plainly mis-
judges the irreparable harm and balance-of-the-equities
factors by privileging the bald assertion of unconstrained
executive power over countless families’ pleas for the sta-
bility our Government has promised them. Because, re-
spectfully, I cannot abide our repeated, gratuitous, and
harmful interference with cases pending in the lower courts
while lives hang in the balance, I dissent.