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Judge pauses Trump administration plans to end deportation protection for Venezuelans
Venezuelan migrants deported from the United States peer through windows of an Eastern Airlines plane upon arriving at Simon Bolivar International Airport in Maiquetia, Venezuela, on Sunday, March 30, 2025.
Cristian Hernandez/AP
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Cristian Hernandez/AP
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal judge on Monday paused plans by the Trump administration to end temporary legal protections for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans, a week before they were scheduled to expire.
The order by U.S. District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco is a relief for 350,000 Venezuelans whose Temporary Protected Status was set to expire April 7 after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem reversed protections granted by the Biden administration.

Chen said in his ruling that the action by Noem “threatens to: inflict irreparable harm on hundreds of thousands of persons whose lives, families, and livelihoods will be severely disrupted, cost the United States billions in economic activity, and injure public health and safety in communities throughout the United States.”
He said the government had failed to identify any “real countervailing harm in continuing TPS for Venezuelan beneficiaries” and said plaintiffs will likely succeed in showing that Noem’s actions “are unauthorized by law, arbitrary and capricious, and motivated by unconstitutional animus.”
Chen, who was appointed to the bench by President Barack Obama, a Democrat, said his order in the lawsuit brought by the National TPS Alliance applies nationally. Noem had also announced the end of TPS for an estimated 250,000 additional Venezuelans in September.
The judge gave the government one week to file notice of an appeal and the plaintiffs one week to file to pause for 500,000 Haitians whose TPS protections are set to expire in August. Alejandro Mayorkas, the previous secretary, had extended protections for all three cohorts into 2026.
“Today is a good day for the migrant community in this country,” said Pablo Alvarado, co-executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.
He said that people fleeing war-torn El Salvador who initially benefited from the TPS program fought to maintain protections that came to include countries such as Ukraine, Sudan and Syria — and the broader community must continue fighting.
“It takes so much courage to come forward and say, ‘Here I am, and I’m going to fight for this,’” Alvarado said. “We’re not going to throw anyone under the bus. We’re going to fight for everyone because everyone is deserving.”
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Congress created TPS, as the law is known, in 1990 to prevent deportations to countries suffering from natural disasters or civil strife, giving people authorization to live and work in the U.S. in increments of up to 18 months if the Homeland Security secretary deems conditions in their home countries are unsafe for return.

The reversals are a major about-face from immigration policies under former President Joe Biden, a Democrat, and come as Republican President Donald Trump and his top aides have ratcheted up attacks on judges who rule against them, with immigration being at the forefront of many disagreements.
At a hearing last Monday, lawyers for TPS holders said that Noem has no authority to cancel the protections and that her actions were motivated in part by racism. They asked the judge to pause Noem’s orders, citing the irreparable harm to TPS holders struggling with fear of deportation and potential separation from family members.
Government lawyers for Noem said that Congress gave the secretary clear and broad authority to make determinations related to the TPS program and that the decisions were not subject to judicial review. Plaintiffs have no right to thwart the secretary’s orders from being carried out, they said.
But Chen found the government’s arguments unpersuasive and said that numerous derogatory and false comments by Noem — and by Trump — against Venezuelans as criminals show that racial animus was a motivator in ending protections.
“Acting on the basis of a negative group stereotype and generalizing such stereotype to the entire group is the classic example of racism,” he wrote.
Biden sharply expanded use of TPS and other temporary forms of protection in a strategy to create and expand legal pathways to live in the United States while suspending asylum for those who enter illegally.

Trump has questioned the the impartiality of a federal judge who blocked his plans to deport Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador, levelling his criticism only hours before his administration asked an appeals court to lift the judge’s order.
The administration has also said it was revoking temporary protections for more than 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans who have come to the U.S. since October 2022 through another legal avenue called humanitarian parole, which Biden used more than any other president. Their two-year work permits will expire April 24.
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Man Charged With Posting Bomb Instructions Used in New Orleans Attack
Federal prosecutors have filed charges against a former Army serviceman they accused of distributing instructions on how to build explosives that were used by a man who conducted a deadly attack in New Orleans on New Year’s Day last year.
The former serviceman, Jordan A. Derrick, a 40-year-old from Missouri, was charged with one count of engaging in the business of manufacturing explosive materials without a license; one count of unlawful possession of an unregistered destructive device; and one count of distributing information relating to manufacturing explosives, according to a criminal complaint unsealed on Wednesday. The three charges together carry a maximum sentence of 40 years in federal prison.
Starting in September 2023, the authorities said, Mr. Derrick was using various social media sites to share videos of himself making explosive materials, including detonators. His videos provided step-by-step instructions, and he often engaged with viewers in comments, sometimes answering their questions about the chemistry behind the explosives.
The authorities said that Mr. Derrick’s videos were downloaded by Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, 42, who was accused of ramming a pickup truck into a crowd on Bourbon Street in New Orleans on Jan. 1, 2025, in a terrorist attack that killed 14 people and injured dozens. Mr. Jabbar was killed in a shootout with the police. Before the attack, Mr. Jabbar had placed two explosives on Bourbon Street, the authorities said, but they did not detonate.
The authorities later recovered two laptops and a USB drive in a house that Mr. Jabbar had rented. The USB drive contained several videos created by Mr. Derrick that provided instructions on making explosives. The authorities said the explosives they recovered were consistent with the ones Mr. Derrick had posted about.
Mr. Derrick’s lawyers did not respond to requests for comment.
Mr. Derrick was a combat engineer in the Army, where he provided personnel and vehicle support, the authorities said. He also helped supervise safety personnel during demolitions and various operations. He was honorably discharged in February 2013.
The authorities did not say whether Mr. Derrick had any communication with Mr. Jabbar, or whether the men had known each other. In some of Mr. Derrick’s videos and comments, he indicated that he was aware that his videos could be misused.
“There are a plethora of uh, moral, you know, entanglements with topics, any topic of teaching explosives, right?” he asked in one video, according to the affidavit. “Of course, the wrong people could get it.”
The authorities also said that an explosion occurred at a private residence in Odessa, Mo., on May 4, and the occupant of the residence told investigators that he had manufactured explosives after watching online tutorials from Mr. Derrick.
Mr. Derrick’s YouTube account had more than 15,000 subscribers and 20 published videos, the affidavit said. He had also posted content on other platforms, including Odysee and Patreon. Some videos were accessible to the public for free, while others required a paid subscription to view.
“My responsibility to my countrymen is to make sure that I serve the function of the Second Amendment to strengthen it,” Mr. Derrick said in one of his videos, according to the affidavit. “This is how I serve my country for real.”
Outside of the income he received through content creation, Mr. Derrick did not have any known employment. He did receive a monthly disability check from Veterans Affairs, the affidavit stated.
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Chud the Builder, Known for Racist Confrontations, Charged With Attempted Murder
A streamer known for hurling racist slurs in public settings under the nickname “Chud the Builder” was charged with attempted murder after a shooting outside a Tennessee courthouse on Wednesday, the authorities said.
The streamer, Dalton Eatherly, 28, was involved in a confrontation with an unidentified man that escalated to gunfire outside the Montgomery County Court in Clarksville, about 50 miles northwest of Nashville, the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. Both men sustained gunshot wounds and were in stable condition, the office said.
In addition to attempted murder, Mr. Eatherly was charged with employing a firearm during dangerous felony, aggravated assault and reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon, the sheriff’s office said.
Mr. Eatherly, who is white, has accumulated an online audience by livestreaming confrontations in which he uses racist language toward Black people in public.
Law enforcement did not provide any details about the second man involved in Wednesday’s shooting. Mr. Eatherly posted an audio recording online of paramedics treating his wounds in which he claims he shot the man in self-defense.
A video posted by the website Clarksville Now shows Mr. Eatherly on a stretcher with a microphone attached to his lapel.
Mr. Eatherly is being held at the Montgomery County Jail, pending arraignment, the sheriff’s office said.
According to court records, Mr. Eatherly was scheduled to appear for a court hearing on Wednesday morning in an unrelated case brought by Midland Credit Management, a collections agency.
A lawyer listed in court records from a separate harassment case in which Mr. Eatherly was a defendant in November did not respond to a request for comment.
On Sunday, three days before the shooting in Clarksville, Mr. Eatherly was arrested in Nashville. According to a police affidavit, Mr. Eatherly live streamed his meal at a restaurant, Bob’s Steak and Chop House, on Saturday even though the restaurant had asked him ahead of time not to do so.
When he was confronted, Mr. Eatherly “became disruptive and started making racial statements, yelling, screaming and otherwise creating a scene,” according to the affidavit.
He then refused to pay for his $370 meal. Mr. Eatherly was charged with theft of services, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. He was released on $5,000 bond.
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