It was the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that ruled on Monday to end Temporary Protection Status (TPS) for immigrants in the U.S. from four Black and brown countries, but Donald Trump deserves all the credit. That’s because the president “flipped” the traditionally liberal West Coast-based circuit by methodically appointing nothing but conservative judges.

But a closer look at the ruling that will end TPS status for an estimated 500,000 citizens of Haiti, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Sudan — including hundreds of thousands of children who were born in the U.S. — shows it will disproportionately impact people working in industries that have been deemed essential during the coronavirus pandemic.

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The protected statuses were scheduled to expire early next year.

Monday’s 2-1 decision reversed a 2018 ruling extending the protected status because the U.S. District Court “abused its discretion in issuing the preliminary injunction,” the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said in its decision — a decision that will affect people working in essential business sectors such as health care, food processing, delivery and the service industries.

The Center for American Progress, a nonprofit, nonpartisan and independent think tank, found in April that about 131,000 people working in the aforementioned essential industries were TPS holders. With COVID-19 cases surging around the country, sending these immigrants who serve such dire and necessary roles in the pandemic could be seen as short-sighted at best and downright insensitive at worst.

But, of course, Monday’s ruling was all but by design as the president has made no secret of his contempt for nations that he infamously referred to as “shithole countries.” One of the ways Trump managed to accomplish his apparent version of ethnic cleansing was to stack the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals with conservative judges. Not only has Trump appointed nearly a quarter of all active federal judges in the United States — he gave 51 judges lifetime jobs in just three years — but he has also named 10 judges to the 9th Circuit. That’s more than one-third of the circuit’s active judges.

Source: Court’s Ruling To End Immigrants’ TPS Status Hurts Essential Workers In The Pandemic