Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
National TPS Alliance and other plaintiffs challenge Department of Homeland Security decisions concerning Temporary Protected Status for Venezuela and Haiti. The operative complaint consists of two documents and pleads seven counts: five Administrative Procedure Act claims (Counts 1 through 4 and 6) and two equal protection claims (Counts 5 and 7) covering the vacatur and termination decisions. After the Supreme Court's decision in Mullin v. Dahlia Doe, 146 S. Ct. 2121 (2026), the parties agreed the Court lacks jurisdiction to review the July 2025 and November 2025 Haiti terminations, so Counts 4 and 6 are no longer viable.
Plaintiffs moved for leave to amend to drop those two counts and to add three constitutional claims. The first was a procedural due process claim based on the government's alleged failure to follow the processes Congress mandated for TPS. The second was an equal protection claim alleging bare animus toward TPS holders. The third was an ultra vires claim contending that TPS decisions belong exclusively to the Attorney General rather than the Secretary of Homeland Security. Defendants stipulated to eliminating Counts 4 and 6 but opposed the new claims. The parties described the claims still on appeal as the APA challenges to the vacatur decisions (Counts 1 through 3), with Count 2 reviewable only to the extent it rests on the alleged unlawful vacatur.
The Court’s Holding
The Court granted the motion in part and denied it in part. Leave to eliminate Counts 4 and 6 was granted, and leave to add the three new claims was denied. This is a ruling on a motion for leave to amend, not a dismissal of existing claims or a final judgment. Assuming without deciding that Plaintiffs unduly delayed, the Court found no sufficient prejudice, because remaining discovery relates to existing claims and Plaintiffs said they need no new discovery for the proposed claims. The decisive question was futility, which the Court treated as equivalent to a Rule 12(b)(6) analysis. It rejected the government's argument that the TPS judicial-review bar defeats jurisdiction over the new claims, reasoning that Dahlia Doe addressed non-constitutional claims and that the ultra vires jurisdictional question overlaps with the merits.
On the ultra vires claim, the Court held amendment futile. Section 1103(a)(1) and the Homeland Security Act's deeming provisions, 6 U.S.C. sections 552(d) and 557, moved immigration functions previously handled by the Attorney General to the Secretary, and Dahlia Doe cited those provisions for the point that TPS responsibility rests with the Secretary. The Court added that two decades of practice supports that reading and that Plaintiffs' theory would also undercut the Secretary's authority to designate countries in the first place.
On due process, the Court assumed a protected interest but found futility for two reasons. The challenged actions appeared more legislative than adjudicative, which made the applicability of due process dubious. Plaintiffs, who sought only the process the TPS statute itself provides, also failed to show the Constitution requires that process. The Court saw merit in the government's view that the claim is a repackaged APA claim. On bare animus, the allegations were conclusory, because Plaintiffs pleaded no concrete facts distinguishing animus against TPS holders from hostility to the TPS program or to immigrants generally.
Key Takeaways
- The Court treated constitutional claims about TPS decisions as reviewable despite the statutory bar, because Dahlia Doe barred non-constitutional claims and did not resolve the clear-statement question for constitutional ones.
- The order denies leave to amend on futility grounds and does not dismiss anything; the existing vacatur-related APA claims and both equal protection claims remain in the case.
- The Court read the Homeland Security Act's transfer and deeming provisions as placing TPS authority with the Secretary of Homeland Security, rejecting the argument that it stayed with the Attorney General.
- A due process theory that seeks only the procedures written into the TPS statute faces difficulty, because statutory compliance may be sufficient for due process but does not set the constitutional floor.
- A bare-animus claim needs concrete facts showing hostility toward TPS holders as a group, not merely opposition to the TPS program or to immigration policy.
Why It Matters
This is an unreported district-court order and is persuasive only. It follows the reasoning of several other district courts, cited in the order, that rejected similar ultra vires, due process, and bare-animus theories in TPS cases. Its practical effect is to narrow this case after Dahlia Doe by removing claims the Supreme Court's decision foreclosed and by keeping out three proposed constitutional theories.
What remains open is the litigation over the vacatur-based APA claims and the existing equal protection claims. Plaintiffs were ordered to file an amended complaint consistent with the ruling by October 21, 2026. The Court set a status conference for November 17, 2026, to address case management, including deadlines for dispositive motions and trial.