WASHINGTON (WMAL/AP) – A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s plan to deport immigrants with temporary protective status that allows them to live and work in the country legally.

U.S. District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco granted a request for a preliminary injunction against the administration’s decision to discontinue temporary protected status for people from Sudan, Nicaragua, Haiti and El Salvador.

The judge said there is evidence that “President Trump harbors an animus against non-white, non-European aliens which influenced his … decision to end the TPS designation.”

The judge also said the plaintiffs provided evidence that the head of the Department of Homeland Security was influenced by President Trump and/or the White House in her TPS decision-making according to Virginia’s Attorney General Mark Herring.

Justice Department spokesman Devin O’Malley said the ruling “usurps the role of the executive branch.”

“The Justice Department completely rejects the notion that the White House or the Department of Homeland Security did anything improper. We will continue to fight for the integrity of our immigration laws and our national security,” O’Malley’s statement said.

Herring applauded the judge’s decision in this case. He was among a number of attorney’s general – including Karl Racine from D.C. and Brian Frosh from Maryland – who filed an amicus brief in support of the plaintiffs who filed a lawsuit in California challenging the Trump administration’s decision and asking the court to block it.

“This is great news for the thousands of Virginia residents who have sought safety and refuge in Virginia, and to whom the federal government made a promise,” said Herring in a statement.

Temporary protected status is granted to countries ravaged by natural disasters or war and lets citizens from those countries remain in the U.S. until the situation improves back home. About 300,000 people have received those protections.

The ruling said the government failed to show the harm of continuing the 20-year-old program and that the plaintiffs established how uprooting those immigrants could hurt the local and national economy.

Herring said more than 20,000 immigrants from El Salvador were allowed to legally come to Virginia because a series of earthquakes – the first in 2001 – in El Salvador made it unsafe for them to stay there.

“These individuals have put down roots in Virginia, raised and started families, built and contributed to growing businesses, and become valued members of their communities,” said Herring.

The Trump administration concluded that El Salvador had received significant international aid to recover from the earthquake, and homes, schools and hospitals there had been rebuilt.

The Trump administration ended the program for the other three countries as well.

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