Alanna Durkin Richer, Associated Press, July 23, 2018

A federal judge on Monday denied the Trump administration’s bid to throw out a lawsuit that alleges its decision to end special protections shielding Haitian, Salvadoran and Honduran immigrants from deportation was racially motivated.

U.S. District Judge Denise Casper’s ruling means the case that seeks to block the administration from terminating temporary protected status for thousands of immigrants from those three countries can move forward. She also rejected the administration’s request to remove Republican President Donald Trump as a defendant in the case.

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“This Court finds that the combination of a disparate impact on particular racial groups, statements of animus by people plausibly alleged to be involved in the decision-making process, and an allegedly unreasoned shift in policy sufficient to allege plausibly that a discriminatory purpose was a motivating factor in a decision,” Casper wrote.

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Last month, a federal judge in San Francisco refused to throw out a similar lawsuit challenging the administration’s decision to end the protections for immigrants from El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua and Sudan.

Temporary protected status provides safe havens for people from countries experiencing armed conflicts, natural disasters and other challenges.

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The Trump administration argues that conditions in the countries have improved and that the program was not designed for the protections to be continuously extended.