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SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration from ending temporary legal protections that have granted more than 1 million people from Haiti and Venezuela the right to live and work in the United States.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Edward Chen of San Francisco for the plaintiffs means 600,000 Venezuelans whose temporary protections expired in April or whose protections were about to expire Sept. 10 have status to stay and work in the United States. It also keeps protections for about 500,000 Haitians.

Chen scolded Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem for revoking protections for Venezuelans and Haitians that the judge said would send them “back to conditions that are so dangerous that even the State Department advises against travel to their home countries.”

He said Noem’s actions were arbitrary and capricious, and she exceeded her authority in ending protections that were extended three times by the Biden administration.

Presidential administrations have executed the law for 35 years based on the best available information and in consultation with other agencies, “a process that involves careful study and analysis. Until now,” Chen wrote.

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Temporary Protected Status is a designation that can be granted by the Homeland Security secretary to people in the United States, if conditions in their homelands are deemed unsafe for return due to a natural disaster, political instability or other dangerous conditions.

Millions of Venezuelans have fled political unrest, mass unemployment and hunger. The country is mired in a prolonged crisis brought on by years of hyperinflation, political corruption, economic mismanagement and an ineffectual government.

Haiti was first designated for TPS in 2010 after a catastrophic magnitude 7.0 earthquake killed and wounded hundreds of thousands of people, and left more than 1 million homeless. Haitians face widespread hunger and gang violence.

Their designations were to expire in September but later extended until February, due to a separate court order out of New York.

Noem said that conditions in both Haiti and Venezuela had improved and that it was not in the national interest to allow migrants from the countries to stay on for what is a temporary program. Attorneys for the government have said the secretary’s clear and broad authority to make determinations related to the TPS program are not subject to judicial review.

Designations are granted for terms of six, twelve or 18 months, and extensions can be granted so long as conditions remain dire. The status prevents holders from being deported and allows them to work.

The secretary’s action in revoking TPS was not only unprecedented in the manner and speed in which it was taken but also violated the law, Chen wrote.

The case has had numerous legal twists, including an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. In March, Chen temporarily paused the administration’s plans to end TPS for people from Venezuela. An estimated 350,000 Venezuelans were set to lose protections the following month.

The U.S. Supreme Court in May reversed his order while the lawsuit played out. The justices provided no rationale, which is common in emergency appeals, and did not rule on the merits of the case.

Venezuelans with expired protections were fired from jobs, separated from children, detained by officers and even deported, lawyers for TPS holders said.

The Supreme Court’s reversal does not apply to Friday’s ruling. The government is expected to seek a stay of Chen’s order as it appeals.

Last week, a three-judge appeals panel also sided with plaintiffs, saying the Republican administration did not have the authority to vacate protection extensions granted by the previous administration.

Har writes for the Associated Press.

The Hollywood Premiere Motel doesn’t get a lot of rave reviews — in fact, it’s among the lowest ranked lodgings in the city. But thanks to its mid-century Googie design, it is the first motel to join the L.A.’s Historic-Cultural Monument List.

The City Council approved that designation on Wednesday, singling out the 1960 motel and its weathered neon sign as prime examples from the glory days of roadside architecture. There was no opposition or discussion, nor did the motel owner, listed as Yang Hua Xi, take a position.

“It may have a 1.7-star Tripadvisor rating, but we don’t judge our landmarks by thread count,” said Councilman Hugo Soto-Martinez, whose 13th District includes the motel, in a statement.

That Tripadvisor score ranks the motel 110th of 118 motels in Los Angeles, and its Yelp reviews aren’t any better. “Felt like puking,” wrote one Yelp user in May.

The two-story motel, which stands at Hollywood Boulevard and Serrano Avenue, was nominated by preservationist James Dastoli.

“This, to me, is a landmark that defines the entire neighborhood of East Hollywood,” Dastoli said at a city Cultural Heritage Committee meeting in March.

“My initial response, looking at the nomination, was, really?” said commission President Barry Milofsky. But he went on to support the designation.

Though the motel parking lot is often empty, its look has attracted frequent filming in the last decade, including TV’s “Twin Peaks,” “Fargo” and “NCIS: Los Angeles,” along with Justin Timberlake’s 2016 “Can’t Stop the Feeling” music video.

In their report on the site, city staffers found that the motel serves as “an excellent example of a 1960s motel that accommodated automobile tourism in Hollywood” and is “a highly intact and rare example of a 1960s motel in Hollywood.”

After the 1960s, the staff report noted that “motels began to fall out of favor as chains such Holiday Inn increasingly dominated the industry” and tourists turned to more compact building types with corridors indoors, not outside.

Soto-Martinez called the Hollywood Premiere “a survivor — still standing after decades of change in Hollywood.”

The Hollywood Premiere was built in 1960 with 42 units in a two-story, stucco-clad building, with a tall, Googie-style neon sign on a pole, parking near the guest rooms and a swimming pool at the corner of the lot behind breeze blocks. It once had a coffee shop, but that space is now idle. The architect was Joyce Miller, a woman working in a trade then dominated by men.

With Tuesday’s vote, the motel joins a Historic-Cultural Monuments list that includes more than 1,300 businesses, homes and landscape features. Begun in 1962, the list includes familiar icons like Union Station, the Bradbury Building and the Hollywood sign but also many less obvious choices, including Taix French Restaurant (built in 1929); the Studio City site of the Oil Can Harry’s bar (which operated from 1968 to 2021; and Leone’s Castle, a 1936 San Pedro apartment building designed to resemble a French castle.

Designation as a city Historic-Cultural Monument doesn’t automatically protect a building from changes or demolition, nor does it trigger any government spending on preservation. But once a building is designated a landmark, the city’s Office of Historic Resources must review permit application before any alterations are allowed. Demolition is forbidden unless an environmental review has been approved.

The city’s staff report also cited several other roadside lodgings that serve as “exemplary and intact examples of the Mid-Century Modern architectural style,” including the Beverly Laurel Motor Hotel (1964), the Wilshire Twilighter Motor Hotel (1958; now known as the Dunes Inn) and the Hollywood Downtowner Motel (1956), which is being converted into 30 interim residences for people at risk of homelessness as part of the state’s Project Homekey. So far, the Downtowner’s twinkling neon sign above Hollywood Boulevard has been preserved.

July 7 (UPI) — The Trump administration announced Monday it will rescind the terrorist designation given to the Syrian group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

In a document from the State Department, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote that the United States has revoked “the designation of al-Nusrah Front, also known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, as a foreign terrorist organization.”

The revocation will go into effect upon its official publication Tuesday, but the letter already has been made available to read by the general public.

HTS is currently leading Syria as a transitional government after it led the overthrow of former dictator President Bashar al-Assad in December. The group’s origins come from a Syrian branch of al-Qaida, but it severed ties several years ago. According to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, HTS has about 40,000 members, as of early this year, and had employed “insurgency tactics” in its fight against the Assad regime.

The State Department added HTS to the Nusrah Front’s existing foreign terrorist organization designation in June 2018.

“Tomorrow’s action follows the announced dissolution of HTS and the Syrian government’s commitment to combat terrorism in all its forms,” Rubio said in a statement.

“This FTO revocation is an important step in fulfilling President [Donald] Trump’s vision of a stable, unified and peaceful Syria.”

Trump directed the State Department last week to review the status of HTS as a terrorist group as part of an executive order that removed most sanctions formerly levied on Syria, while leaving those in place that target Assad and his regime.

“I took off the sanctions because if I didn’t do that, they wouldn’t have had a chance. And Syria has a chance,” Trump said last week during a press conference in Florida.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is revoking the terrorism designation of a group led by Syria’s new president as part of a broader U.S. engagement with the transitional government since the ouster of former leader Bashar Assad late last year.

In a statement released on Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the move, which will take effect on Tuesday, “recognizes the positive actions taken by the new Syrian government” under President Ahmad al-Sharaa.

Earlier Monday, the Federal Register published an advance notice, which said Rubio made the decision on June 23 in consultation with the attorney general and Treasury secretary.

The decision had not been previously announced, although it was made as the Trump administration has been moving to ease or end many U.S. sanctions that had been imposed during Assad’s rule.

The step looks to further end Syria’s isolation since a lightning rebel offensive ousted the Assad family from decades of rule and gives the new government a boost as it tries to rebuild a country shattered by 13 years of civil war.

The brief notice offered no details about the revocation of the foreign terrorist organization designation for the al-Nusrah Front, also known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

Al-Nusrah was originally designated a foreign terrorist organization for its previous affiliation with Al Qaeda. In 2017, it split and changed its name to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which the first Trump administration added to the initial designation.

Syria has been improving relations with the United States and other Western countries following the fall of Assad in December in an offensive led by Al-Sharaa ’s group.

On June 30, seven days after Rubio signed the revocation, President Trump signed an executive order ending many U.S. economic sanctions on Syria, following through on a promise he made to Al-Sharaa when the two met in Saudi Arabia in May.

“This FTO revocation is an important step in fulfilling President Trump’s vision of a stable, unified, and peaceful Syria,” Rubio said in his statement.

Trump’s executive order did not rescind sanctions imposed on Assad, his top aides, family members and officials who had been determined to have committed human rights abuses or been involved in drug trafficking or part of Syria’s chemical weapons program.

It also leaves intact a major set of sanctions passed by Congress targeting anyone doing business with or offering support to Syria’s military, intelligence or other suspect institutions.

While the Trump administration has passed temporary waivers on those sanctions, known as the Caesar Act, they can only be permanently repealed by law.

Lee writes for the Associated Press.

The move follows the lifting of sanctions on Damascus after the fall of the al-Assad government last year.

The United States will revoke its designation of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) as a foreign terrorist organisation (FTO) as Washington softens its approach to post-war Syria following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government last year.

The decision, which takes effect on Tuesday, comes as part of US President Donald Trump’s broader strategy to re-engage with Syria and support its reconstruction after more than a decade of devastating conflict.

“This FTO revocation is an important step in fulfilling President Trump’s vision of a stable, unified, and peaceful Syria,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement Monday.

HTS had been designated as a “terrorist” group by the US since 2018 due to its former ties to al-Qaeda.

The group emerged out of the al-Nusra Front, once al-Qaeda’s official branch in Syria, but formally severed those ties in 2016 after HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa declared the group’s independence.

Al-Sharaa, who led the opposition forces that removed al-Assad in a lightning offensive last December, has since become Syria’s president.

He has launched what many experts have described as a charm offensive aimed at Western powers, including meetings with French President Emmanuel Macron and, most recently, Trump in Riyadh in May.

The Trump administration and the European Union have since lifted sanctions on Syria.

“In line with President Trump’s May 13 promise to deliver sanctions relief to Syria, I am announcing my intent to revoke the Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designation of al-Nusrah Front, also known as Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), under the Immigration and Nationality Act,” Rubio said.

“Tomorrow’s action follows the announced dissolution of HTS and the Syrian government’s commitment to combat terrorism in all its forms.”

HTS was dissolved in late January, with its forces folded into the official Syrian military and security forces.

Damascus welcomed the US decision as a step towards normalisation. In a statement, Syria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the delisting of HTS was a “positive step toward correcting a course that previously hindered constructive engagement”.

The ministry added that it hoped the move would “contribute to the removal of remaining restrictions that continue to impact Syrian institutions and officials, and open the door to a rational, sovereign-based approach to international cooperation”.

Meanwhile, HTS remains under United Nations Security Council sanctions, which were imposed in 2014 over its previous affiliation with al-Qaeda. Al-Sharaa also remains under UNSC sanctions, which can only be removed by the Council itself.

Al-Sharaa is reportedly preparing to attend the UN General Assembly in New York this September.

NEW YORK — A federal judge in New York on Tuesday blocked the Trump administration from ending temporary legal status for more than 500,000 Haitians who are already in the United States.

District Court Judge Brian M. Cogan in New York ruled that moving up the expiration of the temporary protected status, or TPS, by at least five months for Haitians, some of whom have lived in the U.S. for more than a decade, is unlawful.

The Biden administration had extended Haiti’s TPS status through at least Feb. 3, 2026, due to gang violence, political unrest, a major earthquake in 2021 and several other factors, according to court documents.

But last week, the Department of Homeland Security announced it was terminating those legal protections as soon as Sept. 2, setting Haitians up for potential deportation. The department said the conditions in the country had improved and Haitians no longer met the conditions for the temporary legal protections.

The ruling comes as President Trump works to end protections and programs for immigrants as part of his mass deportations promises.

The judge’s 23-page opinion states that the Department of Homeland Security’s move to terminate the legal protections early violates the TPS statute that requires a certain amount of notice before reconsidering a designation.

“When the Government confers a benefit over a fixed period of time, a beneficiary can reasonably expect to receive that benefit at least until the end of that fixed period,” according to the ruling.

The judge also referenced the fact that the plaintiffs have started jobs, enrolled in schools and begun receiving medical treatment with the expectations that the country’s TPS designation would run through the end of the year.

Manny Pastreich, president of the Service Employees International Union Local 32BJ, which filed the lawsuit, described the ruling as an “important step” but said the fight is not over.

“We will keep fighting to make sure this decision is upheld,” Pastreich said in a statement. “We will keep fighting for the rights of our members and all immigrants against the Trump Administration – in the streets, in the workplace, and in the courts as well. And when we fight, we win.”

DHS did not immediately respond to an email from the Associated Press requesting comment. But the government had argued that TPS is a temporary program and thus “the termination of a country’s TPS designation is a possibility beneficiaries must always expect.”

Haiti’s TPS status was initially activated in 2010 after the catastrophic earthquake and has been extended multiple times, according to the lawsuit.

Gang violence has displaced 1.3 million people across Haiti as the local government and international community struggle with the spiraling crisis, according to a report from the International Organization for Migration. There has been a 24% increase in displaced people since December, with gunmen having chased 11% of Haiti’s nearly 12 million inhabitants from their home, the report said.

In May, the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to strip Temporary Protected Status from 350,000 Venezuelans, potentially exposing them to deportation. The order put on hold a ruling from a federal judge in San Francisco that kept the legal protections in place.

The judge’s decision in New York also comes on the heels of the Trump administration revoking legal protections for thousands of Haitians who arrived legally in the U.S. through a humanitarian parole program.