Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced Wednesday that she had rescinded a last-minute order by former DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas extending Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelan "refugees" until October 2026. The cancellation of TPS affects approximately 600,000 Venezuelans living illegally in the United States.

On Tuesday, Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, decided to revoke the 18-month extension of what is known as Temporary Protected Status, which is intended to help people in the United States who cannot return safely and immediately to their country because of a natural disaster or an armed conflict. The move is a blow to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants who believed they would not only be protected from deportation but also provided work permits until at least the fall of 2026.

.@Sec_Noem: "Before he left town, Mayorkas signed an order that said for 18 months, they were going to extend protection to people on Temporary Protected Status, which meant they were going to be able to stay here and violate our laws for another 18 months. We stopped that." pic.twitter.com/G1fyP4qA9f

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) January 29, 2025

Before he left town, Mayorkas signed an order that said for 18 months, they were going to extend protection to people on Temporary Protected Status, which meant they were going to be able to stay here and violate our laws for another 18 months. We stopped that.

This is just the start of the battle. As we learned from the Supreme Court, any memo by any Democrat official, no matter how flimsy, is the law of the land and can't be touched; see The Supreme Court Rules Trump Can't End the Illegal DACA Program Because Nothing Matters Anymore – RedState. During Trump 1.0, he tried to end TPS for Haiti, El Salvador, Honduras, Nepal, Sudan, and Nicaragua. These all ended up in court, where Trump lost. The Biden crime family stopped pursuing the issue and went full-metal Leeeroy Jenkins at the Southern border.

There is a better prognosis this time around as 1) the federal judiciary is very different, 2) the corrosive effect of massive illegal immigration has become well known, 3) Venezuelan migrants are increasingly associated with criminality and gang activity, and 4) Mayorkas was in a rush to leave and seems to have botched the order extending TPS.

Ms. Noem’s decision finds fault with the move by Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary under Mr. Biden, to extend the protections for Venezuelans in the final month of Mr. Biden’s term. The agency generally must decide at regular intervals whether the protections should be extended before they expire. The notice argued that Mr. Mayorkas made his move too early and said the extension should not remain in effect “given the exceedingly brief period” since it was issued on Jan. 17.

A Homeland Security Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, argued that the last-minute extension by the Biden administration appeared to be a way to tie the hands of Trump officials.

The botched process, which resulted in an improper extension, gives Trump a better chance of succeeding than the first time around when he tried to cut short TPS.