NEW: Trump Scores Huge Legal Victory

President Donald Trump and his administration were handed yet another victory after an appellate court ruled they can continue on with ending temporary deportation protections for thousands of Afghan and Cameroonian nationals.

Thanks to the court’s decision, the Department of Homeland Security is allowed to halt Temporary Protected Status for a total of 10,000 Afghans and Cameroonians. All this will move forward while a court challenge against the administration’s move continues to be resolved in court.

According to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday, while CASA, an immigration advocacy organization that is suing DHS, has a plausible case, not enough evidence exists to block the TPS operation while the challenge continues.

“We agree with the district court that CASA, Inc. has stated a plausible claim for relief with regard to the alleged ‘preordained’ decision to terminate temporary protected status (TPS) for Afghanistan and Cameroon, and that the balance of the equities and the public interest weigh in favor of CASA, Inc.,” the court said.

“At this procedural posture, however, there is insufficient evidence to warrant the extraordinary remedy of a postponement of agency action pending appeal,” the court’s ruling stated.

TPS was first created as part of the Immigration Act of 1990. It provides immigrants with deportation protections, along with work eligibility for specific foreign nationals who are living in the United States. This includes those who hail from countries experiencing conflicts or natural disasters.

It’s important to point out that the authority doesn’t give migrants permanent legal status. Individuals who lose their TPS protections can then be sent back home unless they obtain some other form of legal status.

While it’s not, in theory, supposed to allow permanent legal status, that’s not been the case in practice.

“Honduras and Nicaragua, for example, were initially designated for TPS roughly 25 years ago based on an environmental disaster that resulted in ‘substantial, but temporary’ disruption of living conditions, according to a DHS memo issued earlier in July. Since that time, however, both Central American countries have seen their TPS designations ‘continuously extended’ over the years, with Nicaragua’s designation being extended a total of 13 consecutive times,” The Daily Caller reported.

Trump’s administration has moved to end TPS for both Nicaragua and Honduras because reviews have found that both nations no longer fit within the criteria to have a deportation protection designation.

“This is another win for the American people and the safety of our communities,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said on Tuesday in a statement given to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “TPS was never intended to be a de facto asylum program, yet it has been abused as one for decades.”

A total of roughly 9,600 Afghans and nearly 3,500 Cameroonians currently possess TPS. Protections for Afghan immigrants were scheduled to end at the beginning of July, while protections for Cameroonians are to expire in early August.