The appeals court ruled that Noem’s decision to end protections for Venezuelans in the United States was illegal

A federal appeals court ruled late Wednesday that the Trump administration acted illegally when it ended legal protections that gave hundreds of thousands of people from Venezuela permission to live and work in the United States.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling that found Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem exceeded her authority when she terminated temporary protected status for Venezuelans.

But the decision will not have any immediate practical effect after the US Supreme Court in October allowed Noem’s decision to take effect pending a final decision from the justices.

Read more: Supreme Court allows Trump to revoke protections from more than 300,000 Venezuelan immigrants

In an emailed statement on Thursday, a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman criticized the ruling as “an extrajudicial and activist order from the federal judiciary” and said federal judges continue to “undermine our immigration laws.”

Assistant Secretary of State Tricia McLaughlin also stressed that TPS was meant to be temporary.

The Ninth Circuit panel also upheld the lower court’s ruling that Noem exceeded her authority when she decided to end TPS early for hundreds of thousands of people from Haiti.

A federal judge in Washington is expected to rule any day now on a request for a temporary pause to end Haiti’s temporary protected status while a separate lawsuit challenging it continues. The country’s TPS rating is scheduled to expire on February 3.

Ninth Circuit Judges Kim Wardlaw, Salvador Mendoza Jr. and Anthony Johnston said in Wednesday’s ruling that the TPS legislation passed by Congress did not give the secretary the authority to revoke an existing TPS designation. All three justices were nominated by Democratic presidents.

“The statute contains numerous procedural safeguards that ensure that individuals with temporary protected status enjoy predictability and stability during periods of exceptional and temporary circumstances in their home country,” Wardlow, who was nominated by President Bill Clinton, wrote to the committee.

Wardlaw said Noem’s “unlawful actions had real and significant consequences” for Venezuelans and Haitians in the United States who rely on TPS.

“The record is full of examples of hardworking, contributing members of society — mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, and partners of U.S. citizens, who pay taxes, and have no criminal records — who have been deported or detained after losing their TPS,” she wrote.

Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, authorized by Congress as part of the Immigration Act of 1990, allows the Secretary of Homeland Security to grant lawful immigration status to people fleeing countries experiencing civil conflict, environmental disasters, or other “exceptional and temporary circumstances” that prevent safe return to that country of origin.

Appointments are granted for a period of six, 12 or 18 months, and extensions can be granted as long as conditions remain dire. This status prevents holders from deportation and allows them to work, but does not give them a path to citizenship.

In ending the protections, Noem said conditions in both Haiti and Venezuela had improved, and that it was not in the national interest to allow migrants from both countries to remain in a temporary program.

Millions of Venezuelans have fled political unrest, mass unemployment and hunger. The country is mired in a long-term crisis caused by years of hyperinflation, political corruption, economic mismanagement, and ineffective government.

McLaughlin said in her statement on Thursday that President Donald Trump’s decision to dismiss Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro brings stability to the country.

Haiti was first designated under TPS in 2010 after a devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake killed and injured hundreds of thousands of people, and displaced more than a million. Haitians face widespread hunger and gang violence.

Previous administrations turned Haiti’s TPS into a “de facto amnesty program,” McLaughlin said, noting that the earthquake occurred more than 15 years ago.

In Wednesday’s ruling, Mendoza separately wrote that there was “sufficient evidence of racial and national animosity” that strengthened the lower court’s conclusion that Noem’s decisions were “predetermined and their reasoning is deceptive.”

“It is clear that the Secretary’s vacant actions were not in fact based on substantive policy considerations or real differences with respect to the previous administration’s TPS procedures, but were instead rooted in stereotype-based diagnosis of immigrants from Venezuela and Haiti as dangerous criminals or mentally ill,” he wrote.

Government lawyers argued that the Minister had clear and broad authority to make decisions relating to the TPS program and that those decisions were not subject to judicial review. They also denied that her actions were motivated by racial animus.