TPS for Yemen will remain while lawsuit challenging termination proceeds, protecting thousands at risk of deportation into extreme danger

May 1, 2026, New York – A federal court today issued an emergency order preventing the Trump administration’s termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Yemen, granting a victory to a class of Yemeni immigrants who sued to preserve the program. Under the order, TPS will remain in place pending the outcome of the class action lawsuit, which says the administration’s termination of the program violates the Administrative Procedure Act and the Fifth Amendment. TPS had been due to expire at midnight on May 4.

“The decision to halt the termination of TPS is a lifeline for my family; it is the moment we finally breathed a sigh of relief after months of existential anxiety,” said plaintiff Hadeel Doe, filing under a pseudonym for her safety. “This decision means that my children, who are U.S. citizens, will not be forced back into an environment that threatens them with violence or forced recruitment. It means my unborn child, who suffers from heart complications, will receive the specialized medical attention and care he needs here in America. We are grateful for this humanitarian victory, but we hope this extension is a step toward permanent stability—protecting our families from the constant shadow of deportation and allowing us to live safely in the country my children call home.”

The plaintiffs – seven Yemenis with TPS or pending applications – represent a class of 3,235. Among the plaintiffs are people who have had TPS for more than a decade. Absent court intervention, they would have been  forced to return to a country where a decade-long civil war exacerbated by foreign intervention has led to one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. Several would likely face persecution from the Houthi rebels. 

“For Yemenis, the loss of TPS would not only disrupt individual lives, but also ripple across the many communities we serve,” said plaintiff Fahad Doe, who also filed under a pseudonym for safety. “We are doctors, engineers, and pilots like myself, and also drivers, deli workers, and countless other people who contribute meaningfully every day, supporting not just our own families but the broader fabric of society. Our presence represents resilience, skill, and dedication—values that strengthen the nation as a whole.”

The U.S. government designated Yemen for TPS in 2015 and has renewed it six times. The country is in such turmoil that the U.S. State Department advises Americans not to set foot there for any reason. Nonetheless, on March 3, Kristi Noem, then the Secretary of Homeland Security, announced the termination. DHS’s own document shows that it failed to follow the legally required process in favor of a pre-ordained decision to end TPS. Its notice even acknowledges that the “extraordinary and temporary conditions” making life unsafe in Yemen still exist. Termination, the notice claims, is nonetheless warranted by the “national interest,” a rationale never before used to end TPS in its 35-year history.

The termination is part of the administration’s systematic attack on TPS, which Noem called a “scheme.” While taking numerous other steps to expel non-white, often Muslim, immigrants from the country, the administration has ended TPS designation for all 13 countries that have come up for review, stripping humanitarian protection from hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people. On April 29, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case challenging the administration's termination of TPS for Syrians and Haitians. 

“Today, the court has made clear that humanitarian statutes like TPS cannot be used as a deportation pipeline,” said Razeen Zaman, Director of Immigrant Rights at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF). “The Secretary of Homeland Security had determined it unsafe for Yemenis to return to the country, but terminated their protection anyway. The court's decision affirms that protection must be based on facts and conditions on the ground, not on the political appetite to end it.”

Under the statute, the government may end TPS only when a country no longer meets the conditions for designation. In arbitrarily taking TPS away from Yemeni immigrants, the administration violated the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs how federal agencies implement laws and requires them to satisfy procedural requirements. Further, the administration targeted people based on their ethnicity, religion, and nationality in violation of the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection. 

“The ball is now firmly in the Supreme Court’s court,” said Shayana Kadidal, Senior Managing Attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights. “Sixteen lower courts have unanimously ruled against the Trump administration in finding that the judiciary can at least hear and decide these claims. The fate of 1.3 million TPS holders will now turn on whether the Justices have the good sense to rule the same way.”

For more information, see the case page. 

AALDEF is a national civil rights organization founded in 1974 to protect and promote the rights of Asian Americans. AALDEF serves diverse Asian communities around the country in solidarity with each other, communities of color, and marginalized groups. Community lawyering is at the heart of AALDEF’s work, which combines litigation, advocacy, education, and organizing to secure human rights for all people. Learn more at aaldef.org.