WASHINGTON, United States (AFP)—A US judge has blocked the Trump administration’s decision to strip some 350,000 Haitian immigrants of deportation protections set to expire Tuesday.

In a scathing 83-page ruling, Judge Ana Reyes declared that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem does not have the authority to end the safeguards known as Temporary Protected Status (TPS).

“Plaintiffs charge that Secretary Noem preordained her termination decision and did so because of hostility to nonwhite immigrants,” Reyes wrote. “This seems substantially likely.”

Noem’s actions were “arbitrary and capricious,” the judge said.

She continued: “Kristi Noem has a First Amendment right to call immigrants killers, leeches, entitlement junkies, and any other inapt name she wants.”

But Noem is obligated “to apply faithfully the facts of the law in implementing the TPS program,” the judge said.

Haiti’s many woes include severe poverty, rampant violence from heavily armed gangs that control much of the country including most of the capital Port-au-Prince, and chronic political instability.

The current transitional government is very weak, with Haiti not holding any elections in the past 10 years.

In Florida, which is home to more than 150,000 Haitians with TPS, activists and local lawmakers welcomed the judge’s decision but warned that the Trump administration could appeal it.

“This is a step forward. This is breathing room, but breathing room is not stability,” said Marleine Bastien, a county-level lawmaker in the Miami area and a Haitian-born activist.

“If it is not safe for US citizens to travel to Haiti, if it is not safe for planes to fly to Haiti, then by God, it is not safe for anyone to be forcibly returned there,” Bastien told a news conference.

TPS protects its holders from deportation and allows them to work.

It is granted to people deemed to be in danger if they return to their home countries, because of war, natural disaster or other extraordinary circumstances.

The Trump administration has pushed to dismantle the TPS program as part of its broader immigration crackdown.

It argues that TPS lures undocumented immigrants, has been used improperly and was extended for too long under previous Democratic administrations.

Haiti was designated as eligible for TPS after a devastating earthquake that struck it in 2010. This status has been extended several times, most recently in 2021 under the Biden administration.