A Clinton-appointed federal judge is keeping Temporary Protected Status alive for South Sudanese nationals despite a Supreme Court decision that stripped lower courts of authority to review those very protections, and the Trump administration says she is acting in open defiance.

U.S. District Judge Patti Saris granted an administrative stay Thursday in African Communities Together v. Mullin, freezing the administration's November 2025 decision to end South Sudan's TPS designation. Her order keeps that termination "null, void, and of no legal effect" until jurisdiction returns to the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals. Saris called it a procedural measure, not a ruling on the merits, designed to hold the status quo while she considers whether plaintiffs can amend their lawsuit and pursue constitutional claims.

The problem, according to DHS and several legal commentators, is that the Supreme Court already settled the core question. On June 25, a 6-3 majority in Mullin v. Doe held that the TPS statute, the federal law governing temporary immigration protections for nationals of designated countries, bars courts from reviewing Administrative Procedure Act challenges to decisions designating or terminating TPS. That ruling involved TPS terminations for Syrian and Haitian nationals, but its logic applies directly to the South Sudan dispute now sitting on Saris' docket.

DHS General Counsel calls the order "open defiance"

James Percival, DHS General Counsel, did not hold back. He posted on X:

"Another rogue district judge just postponed the termination of TPS for South Sudan. This is open defiance of the Supreme Court, plain and simple!"

The accusation carries weight because of how clearly the Supreme Court drew the line. The 6-3 majority did not leave ambiguity about whether district courts could continue blocking TPS terminations under the APA, the federal law that allows courts to review agency actions for procedural errors. The justices said they could not. The one door left open was for constitutional Equal Protection claims, a narrower category of legal challenge.

Saris' order walks through that open door. The plaintiffs, African Communities Together and four South Sudanese immigrants protected by TPS, did not oppose the Justice Department's request to the 1st Circuit to reverse Saris' earlier February ruling. Instead, they asked the appeals court to send the case back to the district court so they could file an amended complaint pursuing only the constitutional claims the Supreme Court left intact. They then asked Saris to preserve TPS protections while those claims moved forward.

She agreed.

Critics say that maneuver amounts to an end-run. The Supreme Court removed the legal foundation Saris relied on in February, an APA analysis that found DHS likely failed to follow required procedures, had already decided to end the designation, and offered pretextual reasons. With that analysis now invalid, the question is whether Saris had authority to issue any new relief before the amended complaint is even filed.

Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at Advancing American Freedom, told Fox News Digital the answer is no:

"She has no right to 'maintain the status quo.'"

Von Spakovsky calls for emergency Supreme Court intervention and judicial discipline

Von Spakovsky went further, arguing that the only lawful path for Saris was dismissal. He told Fox News Digital:

"No jurisdiction means no jurisdiction and under the applicable law, the only proper course of judicial action is to dismiss the lawsuits, explaining that based on the law and the [Supreme Court's] decision, she has no jurisdiction to entertain any claims in her courtroom."

He also called for the Supreme Court itself to step in:

"These decisions on Sudanese nationals need to be overturned by the Supreme Court in emergency appeals and the judges need to be disciplined for their misconduct in refusing to follow the Supreme Court decision and the federal law that bans them from questioning decisions made by the executive branch on TPS status."

That language, "disciplined for their misconduct", reflects growing frustration among conservative legal figures with district judges who continue issuing nationwide orders that effectively override executive branch immigration policy. The pattern is not unique to Saris. Divided appeals courts have blocked Trump administration policies in other areas, with dissenting judges warning of judicial overreach.

Iowa Solicitor General Eric Wessan offered a more measured version of the same complaint. He told Fox News Digital:

"The Supreme Court ruled that district courts lack jurisdiction to review terminations of temporary protected status. I'm confused why some district courts have not yet removed any remaining road blocks."

Wessan's use of "some district courts", plural, suggests the South Sudan case is not an isolated instance of lower courts resisting the Supreme Court's TPS ruling.

Eight months of rulings trace Saris' resistance to TPS termination

The timeline tells the story. The Trump administration ended South Sudan's TPS designation on November 6, 2025. Within weeks, African Communities Together and four South Sudanese TPS holders filed suit. Saris temporarily blocked the termination in December 2025. She issued a broader postponement in February, finding the plaintiffs were likely to succeed because DHS had allegedly failed to follow required procedures.

The administration appealed to the 1st Circuit in March. Saris declined to stay her own order while the appeal proceeded, a move that kept TPS protections in place even as the government challenged her authority to impose them.

The case was then paused while the Supreme Court resolved related TPS disputes involving Haiti and Syria. When the justices ruled 6-3 on June 25 that district courts lack jurisdiction over APA challenges to TPS decisions, the legal ground beneath Saris' February order collapsed. The Justice Department promptly asked the 1st Circuit to reverse it.

Rather than concede, the plaintiffs pivoted. They asked the appeals court to return the case to Saris so they could amend their complaint and pursue constitutional claims. And Saris, rather than wait for the 1st Circuit to act, issued the administrative stay Thursday, preserving the protections she first imposed in December.

The result is that a single district judge, nominated to the federal bench by President Bill Clinton in 1993, has kept the administration's TPS termination frozen for roughly eight months across multiple orders, and is now doing so after the Supreme Court explicitly limited the legal basis she originally relied on. Clinton-appointed judges have clashed with the Trump administration on other fronts as well, from tax credits to environmental policy.

Saris frames her order as procedural, but the effect is substantive

Saris described the stay as "a procedural measure to preserve the status quo while the court considers the plaintiffs' latest filings." She emphasized it is "not a ruling on the merits."

But the practical effect is indistinguishable from a merits ruling. The administration's November 2025 decision remains "null, void, and of no legal effect." South Sudanese TPS holders retain their protections. And the executive branch's authority to manage the TPS program, authority the Supreme Court just reinforced, is blocked by a district court order issued under the banner of procedural housekeeping.

The distinction Saris draws, procedural versus merits, matters in legal terms. Courts routinely issue short administrative stays to manage their dockets. But critics argue this stay does more than manage a docket. It actively prevents the government from implementing a decision the Supreme Court said lower courts have no jurisdiction to review under the APA.

The plaintiffs' constitutional Equal Protection claims remain untested. The Supreme Court's June 25 ruling in Mullin v. Doe allowed those claims to proceed, but no court has yet ruled on whether the South Sudan TPS termination was motivated by unconstitutional discrimination, the core allegation the plaintiffs would need to prove. What Saris has done is grant relief before that question is answered, based on claims that have not yet been formally filed in an amended complaint.

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment. No response was reported. The broader tension between lower courts and the Supreme Court on questions of federal authority continues to escalate, with state judges and district courts increasingly charting independent paths.

What happens next remains unclear

Several questions hang over the case. How quickly will the 1st Circuit act on the Justice Department's request to reverse Saris' February ruling? Will the administration seek an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court, as von Spakovsky urged? How many South Sudanese nationals currently hold TPS protections affected by this order? And what specific evidence do the plaintiffs plan to present in support of their Equal Protection claims?

None of those questions have public answers yet. What is clear is that a district court judge is exercising authority the Supreme Court's highest recent precedent says she does not have, at least not on the legal theory she originally used. Whether the constitutional claims provide a valid new basis for relief, or simply a procedural vehicle to keep the same protections in place under a different label, is the fight that comes next.

The Supreme Court has shown willingness to act quickly when lower courts resist its rulings. The administration may need the justices to do so again.

When a single district judge can nullify an executive decision that the Supreme Court says she has no authority to review, the question is no longer about immigration policy. It is about whether Supreme Court rulings mean anything at all.