On November 19, 2025, Judge Katherine Polk Failla of the Southern District of New York ordered the Trump Administration to halt its termination of Syria’s TPS designation while the legal case challenging the decision moves forward. This a huge win for TPS and over 6,1000 Syrians in the United States, who will maintain their status, including their work authorization, pending further proceedings.

One month ago, on October 20, 2025, seven Syrian nationals, with the assistance of Van Der Hout LLP, the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP), and Muslim Advocates (MA), filed a putative class action lawsuit challenging DHS’s racially discriminatory decision to terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Syrians. See Dahlia Doe, et al. v. Noem, et al., No. 25-cv-08686 (S.D.N.Y.). The termination was scheduled to go into effect tomorrow—Friday, November 21, 2025. But the court’s urgent intervention prevented the irreparable harm that would have been inflicted upon Syrian TPS holders, their families, and their communities had DHS’s fraught decision been permitted to stand. In her ruling, the judge stated, “one can find plenty of evidence of race- and national origin-based animus” and found that the administration’s decisions terminating TPS have all “involved non-European, majority non-White populations.” She further cited that “the President made sweeping and erroneous statements concerning his belief in the legality of the TPS program and its inutility to what can only be fairly described as an anti-immigrant agenda,” which caused DHS to “terminate TPS status whenever presented with an opportunity to do so, resulting in termination decisions that are ground not in law and not in fact, but that are in political considerations simply not relevant under the TPS statute.”

As explained by Johnny Sinodis, “Congress delineated a very clear procedure that DHS must follow when evaluating whether to extend or end TPS for any country, and this Court has reminded the administration of its obligation to follow the law.”

You can read more information about the decision here.