Judge blocks Trump administration from deporting 3,000 Yemeni refugees

A federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration from forcing about 3,000 Yemeni refugees to leave the US, ruling that temporary protected status repeatedly granted to them and due to expire Monday should be extended again.Judge Dale E Ho in Manhattan extended the status temporarily while a lawsuit seeking to preserve the protections plays out. In an emergency order, he wrote that people granted the status are ordinary, law-abiding people whom the US government had determined could face threats to their safety if they were returned to a country facing an ongoing armed conflict.Amid its immigration crackdown, the Trump administration has terminated temporary protected status for people from nine countries, including Haiti, Venezuela and Ethiopia. Before Ho’s ruling, protections for Yemeni refugees were set to end on Monday, according to US Citizenship and Immigration Services.People with temporary protected status are eligible to remain in the US, may not be removed from the country and are able to receive work and travel authorization.In his ruling, Ho criticized former homeland security secretary Kristi Noem, saying Congress had established a process for temporary protected status to be altered or rescinded, but she had not followed it.He was particularly critical of a social