Rubio Affirms Trump Want Greenland, Bought or Otherwise

Where Things Stand

Greenland tensions: Secretary of State Marco Rubio said President Trump wants to buy Greenland, not invade it. The comments followed renewed backlash from Denmark and NATO allies. Analysts say that the United States already enjoys sweeping military access to the island under a Cold War-era agreement, rendering annexation unnecessary. Read more ›
Ukraine talks: U.S. and Ukrainian officials will hold more talks in Paris on Wednesday, a day after Ukraine’s allies met there and agreed to provide key aspects of postwar security in the event of a cease-fire with Russia. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said on X that he expects Wednesday’s discussions to involve the two thorniest unresolved issues in recent negotiations: control of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and of territory in eastern Ukraine.
Venezuela oil: The U.S. military said on Wednesday that it had intercepted a Russian-flagged oil tanker that had tried to evade the Trump administration’s blockade on Venezuela’s oil exports. Mr. Trump said on Tuesday that Venezuela would begin sending oil to the United States, in what would be a significant concession by the country after American forces captured President Nicolás Maduro. Follow the latest news on Venezuela ›

1 hour ago

This article was reported with the help of journalists in Venezuela, whose names The Times is withholding for their safety.

Maduro is gone, but repression in Venezuela has intensified.

Government officials led a large crowd of Venezuelans through Caracas, the capital, on Tuesday, marching to demand the release of Nicolás Maduro, the nation’s ousted president.

At the same time, the government was on the hunt for anyone celebrating his capture by the United States.

Over the past several days, security forces have interrogated people at checkpoints, boarded public buses and searched passengers’ phones, looking for evidence that they approved of Mr. Maduro’s removal, according to Venezuelans in the country and human rights groups. At least 14 journalists and six citizens were detained; most have been released.

The split screen of the government leading a show of support for an unpopular authoritarian leader while cracking down on his critics was especially striking because the United States is now supporting that government.

Four days after President Trump said the United States would “run” Venezuela, the sprawling political, security and intelligence apparatus that propped up Mr. Maduro’s strongman rule is in still place, and day-to-day life for many Venezuelans has worsened.

The interim leader, Delcy Rodríguez, who was Mr. Maduro’s vice president, has repeatedly demanded his release and condemned the Trump administration for the raid that captured him on Saturday.

“The government of Venezuela runs our country,” she said in a speech on Tuesday. “No one else.”

Delcy Rodríguez smiling and embracing a man in a formal military uniform as men in uniforms and suits look on. — On Monday, at Delcy Rodríguez’s swearing-in as acting president at the National Assembly in Caracas, the authorities detained 14 journalists, according to the local media union.Credit...Alejandro Cegarra for The New York Times

Despite Ms. Rodríguez’s public criticism, White House officials have expressed confidence that she will follow their orders, and there have been indications that they may be right. On Tuesday night, Mr. Trump announced that Venezuela had agreed to give the United States 30 million to 50 million barrels of oil. Venezuelan officials had no immediate response.

So far, it appears that Mr. Trump’s demands for the Venezuelan government, which he and other American presidents have denounced for its repression, have been relatively narrow.

In their public comments since Mr. Maduro’s capture, U.S. officials have focused largely on Venezuela’s oil and its connections to drug trafficking. Privately, they have also pressured Ms. Rodríguez’s government to expel spies and military personnel from China, Russia, Iran and Cuba.

Whether, or how, the Trump administration is prioritizing democracy and human rights in its talks with Venezuela is less clear.

Mr. Trump was asked by reporters on Sunday whether the two sides had discussed the release of political prisoners or the return of opposition politicians from exile. “We haven’t gotten to that yet,” he responded. “What we want to do now is fix up the oil.”

On Tuesday, Mr. Trump said that the Venezuelans “have a torture chamber in the middle of Caracas that they’re closing up.” He appeared to be referring to El Helicoide, a notorious prison where dissidents were held under Mr. Maduro’s rule. As of early Wednesday, it still seemed to be operating.

Ms. Rodríguez appears to have declared a 90-day state of emergency that gives the security forces broad power to “immediately search and capture” anyone who supports “the armed attack by the United States,” along with other measures that would further erode civil liberties in a nation long under authoritarian rule.

Since that decree, Venezuelans have reported an increase in the number of police and security forces on the streets, especially the so-called colectivos, militias of masked men carrying rifles.

Men with long guns riding a motorcycle through a city street. — Venezuelans have reported an increase in the number of police and security forces on the streets, especially the so-called colectivos, militias of masked men carrying large rifles.Credit...The New York Times

The security forces have established numerous checkpoints around the country to stop vehicles, question passengers and search their phones for signs of opposition to the government, rights groups and Venezuelan citizens said.

“They went through people’s phones, opening their WhatsApp and typing in keywords like ‘invasion’ or ‘Maduro’ or ‘Trump’ in the chats to see if they were celebrating Maduro’s arrest,” said Gabriela Buada, director of Human Kaleidoscope, a Venezuelan organization that is tracking the crackdown.

Venezuelans interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared for their safety. One woman said that her husband, a 56-year-old produce vendor in the western state of Zulia, had shouted in celebration shortly after Mr. Maduro’s capture, saying that the autocrat who had once danced at rallies could now dance in prison.

Two days later, two national police officers were waiting for him at his produce stall, his wife said. He was arrested, and the police told the family to pay them $1,000 for his release, she said. They turned to relatives to raise the rest of the money and gave the police bags of fruit and vegetables, and he was released, his wife said.

On Monday, at Ms. Rodríguez’s swearing-in as acting president at the National Assembly in Caracas, the authorities detained 14 journalists, according to the local media union. Thirteen were later released and one was deported, the union said. Twenty-three other journalists who were detained under Mr. Maduro’s rule are still in custody.

People cheering and holding Venezuelan flags behind metal barriers. — A pro-government march in Caracas on Monday. Though most Venezuelans opposed Mr. Maduro’s rule, there has been virtually no public celebration of his downfall, presumably because of the security.Credit...The New York Times

On Monday and Tuesday, security forces detained at least six people at checkpoints, according to Human Kaleidoscope. In western Venezuela, police officials said they arrested two people in their 60s who had celebrated Mr. Maduro’s capture by firing guns into the air.

The current crackdown is not out of character for the Venezuelan government. For years, it has surveilled its citizens, imprisoned political opponents and restricted independent journalists.

What is striking is that the government seems to be ramping up such tactics just when it has the support of the Trump administration, which is also distancing itself from Venezuela’s main opposition, led by the Nobel laureate María Corina Machado.

Freddy Guevara, a Venezuelan ex-congressman and member of Ms. Machado’s coalition who is now in exile in New York, said he hoped the crackdown would spur the Trump administration to take more action against the government.

He argued that the state of emergency announced by Ms. Rodríguez had little practical importance because the government had long disregarded the law anyway. “But what really matters is what it shows,” he said. “It shows these people are believing that Trump is playing around and they can do whatever they want.”

Though a vast majority of Venezuelans opposed Mr. Maduro’s rule, there has been virtually no public celebration of his downfall, presumably because of the heavy security presence. State television has instead broadcast rallies across the country denouncing his capture, led by politicians and other loyalists.

Diosdado Cabello, the Venezuelan interior minister, speaking into a microphone in front of a mural of Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores. — Days earlier, after Mr. Maduro’s capture, Mr. Cabello gathered a group of security forces and recorded a video of them chanting in armored vests and holding rifles.Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The biggest yet was on Tuesday, when a crowd that appeared to be in the thousands marched through Caracas. At a rally at the end, the marquee speaker was Diosdado Cabello, the interior minister who oversaw Mr. Maduro’s repression of the population for years.

Days earlier, after Mr. Maduro’s capture, Mr. Cabello gathered a group of security forces and recorded a video of them chanting in armored vests and holding rifles.

“Always loyal! Never traitors!” they chanted. “Doubting is betrayal!”

Patricia Sulbarán contributed reporting from New York, and Emma Bubola from Buenos Aires.

2 hours ago

Cassandra Vinograd

U.S. and Ukrainian officials will hold more talks in Paris on Wednesday, a day after Ukraine’s allies met there and agreed to provide key aspects of postwar security in the event of a cease-fire with Russia. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said on X that he expects the discussions to involve the two thorniest, unresolved issues in recent negotiations — control of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and of territory in eastern Ukraine.

3 hours ago

Jeffrey Gettleman Amelia Nierenberg and Maya Tekeli

Maya Tekeli reported from Copenhagen.

An old pact already gives Trump a free hand in Greenland.

The remnants of an American air base on Greenland called Bluie East Two, which was built during World War II. Credit...Ivor Prickett for The New York Times

President Trump has ridiculed Denmark’s dog sled teams in Greenland.

He has cited mysterious Chinese and Russian ships prowling off the coast.

He seems increasingly fixated on the idea that the United States should take over this gigantic icebound island, with one official saying the president wants to buy it and another suggesting that the United States could simply take it. Just a few days ago, Mr. Trump said: “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security.”

But the question is: Does the United States even need to buy Greenland — or do something more drastic — to accomplish all of Mr. Trump’s goals?

Under a little-known Cold War agreement, the United States already enjoys sweeping military access in Greenland. Right now, the United States has one base in a very remote corner of the island. But the agreement allows it to “construct, install, maintain, and operate” military bases across Greenland, “house personnel” and “control landings, takeoffs, anchorages, moorings, movements, and operation of ships, aircraft, and waterborne craft.”

It was signed in 1951 by the United States and Denmark, which colonized Greenland more than 300 years ago and still controls some of its affairs.

“The U.S. has such a free hand in Greenland that it can pretty much do what it wants,” said Mikkel Runge Olesen, a researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies in Copenhagen.

“I have a very hard time seeing that the U.S. couldn’t get pretty much everything it wanted,” he said, adding, “if it just asked nicely.”

But buying Greenland — something that Secretary of State Marco Rubio told lawmakers on Tuesday was Mr. Trump’s latest plan — is a different question.

Greenland does not want to be bought by anyone — especially not the United States. And Denmark does not have the authority to sell it, Dr. Olesen said.

“It is impossible,” he said.

In the past, Denmark would have been the decider. In 1946, it refused the Truman administration’s offer of $100 million in gold.

Today, things are different. Greenlanders now have the right to hold a referendum on independence and Danish officials have said it’s up to the island’s 57,000 inhabitants to decide their future. A poll last year found 85 percent of residents opposed the idea of an American takeover.

Greenland’s prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, has repeatedly scoffed at the idea of being bought, saying this past week, “Our country is not for sale.”

The relatively short, straightforward defense agreement between the United States and Denmark was updated in 2004 to include Greenland’s semiautonomous government, giving it a say in how American military operations might affect the local population. The roots of the agreement go back to a partnership forged during World War II.

At that time, Denmark was occupied by the Nazis. Its ambassador in Washington, cut off from Copenhagen, took it upon himself to strike a defense agreement for Greenland with the United States. (The island is part of North America, along the Arctic Ocean and close to Canada’s coast.)

A person rides a bicycle on a gravel road. A red church with a green steeple stands prominently, under a cloudy sky. — A former American air base in Kangerlussuaq in western Greenland. Under a little-known Cold War agreement, the United States has sweeping military access in Greenland.

The fear was that Nazis could use Greenland as a steppingstone to America. The Germans had already established small meteorological bases on the island’s east coast and relayed information for battles in Europe. American troops eventually ousted them and established more than a dozen bases there with thousands of troops, landing strips and other military facilities.

After World War II, the United States continued to run some bases and a string of early warning radar sites. As the Cold War wound down, the United States closed all of them except one. It’s now called the Pittufik Space Base and helps track missiles crossing the North Pole.

The Danes have a light presence, too: a few hundred troops, including special forces that use dog sleds to conduct long-range patrols. In recent months, the Danish government has vowed to upgrade its bases and increase surveillance.

After American special forces captured Nicolás Maduro, the ousted president of Venezuela, from a safehouse last week, Mr. Trump seemed emboldened. Stephen Miller, a top aide, then claimed that Greenland should belong to the United States and that “nobody’s going to fight the United States” over it. Danish and Greenlandic anxiety skyrocketed.

On Tuesday night, Danish and Greenlandic leaders asked to meet with Mr. Rubio, according to Greenland’s foreign minister. It’s not clear if or when that might happen.

Tensions between Mr. Trump and Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, have been steadily rising, as Mr. Trump pushes to “get” Greenland, as he puts it, while Ms. Frederiksen refuses to kowtow to him.

Just a few days ago, Ms. Frederiksen cited the 1951 agreement, saying, “We already have a defense agreement between the Kingdom and the United States today, which gives the United States wide access to Greenland.” She urged the United States “to stop the threats” and said an American attack on Greenland would mean the end of the international world order.

European leaders issued their own statement on Tuesday, also citing the 1951 agreement and saying, “Greenland belongs to its people.”

Two large satellite dishes flank a gray building with green pipes. They are on rocky ground, with a steep mountain and cloudy sky behind them. — An American built, Cold War-era satellite station, referred to locally as Mickey Mouse, remains on a hill above Kangerlussuaq.Credit...Ivor Prickett for The New York Times

Analysts said that if the United States tried to use the defense pact as a fig leaf to send in a lot of troops and try to occupy Greenland, that wouldn’t be legal either.

According to the 2004 amendment, the United States is supposed to consult with Denmark and Greenland before it makes “any significant changes” in its military operations on the island. The 2004 amendment, which was signed by Gen. Colin L. Powell, who was then the secretary of state, explicitly recognizes Greenland as “an equal part of the Kingdom of Denmark.”

Peter Ernstved Rasmussen, a Danish defense analyst, said that in practice, if American forces made reasonable requests, “the U.S. would always get a yes.”

“It is a courtesy formula,” he said. “If the U.S. wanted to act without asking, it could simply inform Denmark that it is building a base, an airfield or a port.”

That’s what infuriates longtime Danish political experts. If Mr. Trump wanted to beef up Greenland’s security right now, he could. But there has been no such official American request, said Jens Adser Sorensen, a former senior official in Denmark’s parliament.

“Why don’t you use the mechanism of the defense agreement if you’re so worried about the security situation?” he said, adding, “The framework is there. It’s in place.”

But Greenland’s strategic location is not the only thing that’s attracted Mr. Trump’s inner circle. The enormous island has another draw: critical minerals, loads of them, buried under the ice. Here, too, analysts say, the United States doesn’t need to take over the island to get them.

Greenlanders have said they are open to doing business — with just about anyone.

Jan. 6, 2026

Maria Abi-Habib and Emiliano Rodríguez Mega

An emergency order from the Venezuelan government appears to criminalize support for the U.S. attack.

Nicolás Maduro was escorted off a helicopter on Monday to be taken to the federal court appearance in Manhattan.Credit...Vincent Alban/The New York Times

A 90-day emergency order from the Venezuelan government appears to order the police to “immediately search and capture” anyone who supports “the armed attack by the United States,” among other directives that would further crack down on civil liberties in a country already under authoritarian rule.

The document, which was obtained by The New York Times, appears to be the emergency decree that was first mentioned by Delcy Rodríguez, Venezuela’s interim leader, during her public address to the country on Saturday, shortly after the capture of Nicolás Maduro. During her speech, she specified that the decree was being sent to the Venezuelan Supreme Court and would be in effect “from this point on.”

“We are ready to defend Venezuela, we are ready to defend our natural resources,” Ms. Rodríguez said.

It is unclear if the document has been formally published into law as it does not appear on the website of the official gazette, the newspaper of the Venezuelan government — a necessary step to consider a law or decree legally binding. But the document has been widely circulated among local media outlets and nonprofit organizations, and cited by the United Nations.

The document also bears the signature of Mr. Maduro; however, given that it mentions the U.S. incursion that led to his capture, analysts have expressed doubts as to how he could have signed such a document while he was being captured.

The document mandates the deployment of the armed forces across Venezuela and along its borders, ordering the military to temporarily take over the country’s oil industry and other public services, including strategic infrastructure.

The extent to which the decree could be enforced against civilians in the streets or to control the country’s vast oil reserves and infrastructure remains to be seen.

For some experts, the document mostly expresses on paper how the Venezuelan government has long been silencing dissenting voices and consolidating power under the country’s military forces.

For example, the document orders “the militarization of public service infrastructure, the oil industry, and other basic state industries,” and says that the personnel of those services or companies should be “temporarily subject to military regulations.”

However, “that was happening before,” said Juan Carlos Apitz, a constitutional lawyer at the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas. “What’s happening now is that they are formalizing it.”

Depending on how the decree is enforced, it may conflict with President Trump’s promise on Saturday to get U.S. oil companies into Venezuela to “spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure.”

But the part of the decree that has raised the most attention inside Venezuela is its fifth article, which allows national, state and municipal police forces to arrest any person suspected of promoting or participating in the recent U.S. incursion.

“The issue here is who determines this, what criteria is used,” Mr. Apitz said. “Would a WhatsApp message be enough to say someone is supporting the U.S. attack?”

In Venezuela, groups of armed men in civilian clothes, known as colectivos, have set up checkpoints to detain people and search their phones. The decree empowers the colectivos to detain people and conduct such searches. Before, such actions were led by the police.

The document also gives Ms. Rodríguez — Mr. Maduro’s former vice president, who was sworn in as Venezuela’s interim leader on Monday — unlimited power to restrict entry into Venezuela, close the country’s borders and suspend people’s right to congregate, protest and move about freely.

Mr. Apitz said the Venezuelan authorities might use the decree to justify the detention of anyone they suspect responsible for seizing Mr. Maduro.

“The decree is the ultimate proof that we’re facing a wounded beast,” Mr. Apitz said, adding that he saw it as “an excuse” to target people who might have allowed Mr. Maduro’s capture. “There is mutual recrimination among them about who handed Maduro over. That is the big question right now: Who handed Maduro over?”

Jack Nicas contributed reporting.

Jan. 6, 2026

Karoun Demirjian

Reporting from Washington

Pardoned Jan. 6 rioters rally in Washington and demand more from Trump.

Protesters marched on the anniversary of Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.Credit...Eric Lee for The New York Times

Five years after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, several dozen rioters, including many who were jailed and later pardoned, gathered in Washington to retrace their steps and vow to keep fighting for payback, even against the Trump administration.

The “J6ers,” as they refer to themselves, have been emboldened by President Trump, who pardoned or commuted the sentences of nearly 1,600 people who planned or participated in storming the Capitol to protest the results of the 2020 election. During Tuesday's anniversary march, they praised Mr. Trump for setting them free, but were critical of his administration for not doing more for them.

“Retribution is what we seek,” said Enrique Tarrio, a far-right activist and leader of the Proud Boys, one of the organizers of the Jan. 6, 2021, demonstration and Tuesday’s anniversary event. “Without accountability, there is no justice.”

“I am loyal to Donald Trump, but my loyalty doesn’t extend to his administration,” said Barry Ramey, who was convicted of assaulting a police officer during the Capitol riot, an act he says he regrets. He listed Attorney General Pam Bondi and Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, among Trump administration officials who “could be doing a better job.”

The marchers had a range of demands, including financial restitution and prison reform. But it is not clear how closely the Trump administration is listening.

No Trump administration officials were present at Tuesday’s march and rally, despite the White House unveiling a formal effortto paint the rioters as innocent victims of police provocation. Many of Mr. Trump’s allies who had promoted the event, like Stephen K. Bannon, were also noticeably absent — leaving Mr. Tarrio as the most prominent headliner.

A few participants in the anniversary march for Jan. 6, 2021, tried to gain access to the Senate Intelligence Committee briefing at the Capitol.Credit...Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times

The anniversary march attendees also appeared to be divided over how to handle their return to the spotlight.

Tuesday’s rally and march were advertised as a memorial for Ashli Babbitt — who was shot on Jan. 6, 2021, as she tried to enter the House chamber — and other protesters who died during the Capitol attack. Several participants laid flowers around the Capitol in Ms. Babbitt’s honor.

But the event was more boisterous and defiant than a vigil, as reunited participants cheered their pardons and jeered the police officers who had been tasked to protect the protest route, outnumbering the marchers.

“This is a gratifying celebration in defiance of tyranny,” said Samuel Lazar, holding up a painting he had commissioned of himself shaking Mr. Trump’s hand in front of the Capitol amid a sea of other people who had been pardoned for their actions on Jan. 6, 2021.

Another throng of marchers encircled a group of D.C. police officers, saying “shame, shame” and calling them “murderous thugs” and “subhuman scum.” Organizers quietly thanked other police officers for keeping counterprotesters at bay.

Law enforcement officers shut down more than a mile of Constitution Avenue, which runs through a part of Washington that is home to several federal buildings, even though the marchers took up less than a block. On several occasions, verbal altercations broke out between marchers and counterprotesters who scattered along the route, as each side used bullhorns to amplify the insults, epithets and curses they exchanged.

“Terrorists!” one man yelled at the marchers as they passed.

“Your wife’s boyfriend voted for Trump!” retorted a Jan. 6 marcher.

During one heated exchange between a group of counterprotesters and marchers near the Capitol, Guy Reffitt, who was a member of the militia group known as the Three Percenters and was the first Jan. 6 defendant to be convicted, used a microphone and amplifier to remind marchers that they were at a memorial, and not in Washington to protest.

Several participants in the anniversary march said that they wanted to see the police officers they blamed for the deaths of Capitol rioters be brought to justice.

Others said they were looking to the government for financial restitution, citing how the months — or in some cases, years — they spent in prison had upended their lives.

“I’m building from nothing now,” Mr. Reffitt said in an interview, saying his career had been ruined. “I personally feel like we should get something back to fix what they’ve taken from us.”

Still others said they were fighting for prison reform, after experiencing the indignities and harsh conditions of federal penitentiaries.

But progress on those fronts will be a challenge. Despite having been pardoned, the march participants are still polarizing, inspiring disgust from critics and caution from Mr. Trump’s more mainstream Republican allies.

“To see that these criminals, these violent criminals who attacked our Capitol five years ago would return back to the scene of their crime to gloat in the face of the democracy they’re trying to overthrow — that made me sick to my stomach,” said Spencer Pilcher, who held a sign that read “January 6ers Belong in Prison (and so does Trump),” with a swastika emblem scratched out.

Jan. 6, 2026

Miriam Jordan

Reporting from Washington

The fate of 350,000 Haitians is at stake as a court weighs their Temporary Protected Status.

Judge Ana C. Reyes faulted the government for “selectively” using a line from a recent U.N. report to justify not extending Temporary Protected Status to Haitians, while ignoring a plethora of concerns laid out in the report about conditions in Haiti.Credit...Sarah Silbiger/Reuters

The Trump administration’s effort to revoke protections for 350,000 people from Haiti who fled their troubled homeland is facing what could be the last legal challenge before Temporary Protected Status for Haitians expires early next month.

Ending T.P.S. for Haitians was part of a wave of actions by the Department of Homeland Security last year as President Trump launched his campaign to carry out mass deportations and remake the U.S. immigration system.

T.P.S., which provides a shield against deportation for people from countries in the throes of a humanitarian crisis or armed conflict, has been a target of Trump officials, who say the program has become anything but temporary and no longer serves its intended purpose.

But revoking protections for Haitians, Venezuelans and people from several other countries has prompted more than a dozen legal challenges, including the case involving Haitians that is being heard this week in federal court in Washington, D.C.

Lawyers challenging the decision to end T.P.S. for Haitians have argued that the move was driven by politics and racial animus rather than by a required assessment of safety conditions in Haiti, where gangs have taken control of much of the capital since the 2021 assassination of the last elected president.

The lawyers have asked the judge in case, Ana C. Reyes of the Federal District Court, to put the revocation of T.P.S. for Haitians on hold while the lawsuit proceeds. Judge Reyes said on Tuesday that she expects to rule on that request by Feb. 2, the day before the status is scheduled to expire for Haitians.

During the hearing, Judge Reyes pressed government lawyers about whether the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, had adequately reviewed conditions in Haiti before terminating T.P.S.

The administration, which is seeking to dismiss the lawsuit, has argued that ending T.P.S. for Haitians is in the national interest and that Secretary Noem is “unfettered by any statutory standard whatsoever.”

At the hearing on Tuesday, the judge focused on an email exchange that the administration cited as evidence that it had met its obligation to assess whether conditions in Haiti had improved sufficiently to justify ending the protection.

In the exchange, a homeland security official asked a State Department official for input on designation for Haiti T.P.S. According to the judge, the State Department official replied that the agency “believes there would be no foreign policy concerns.”

“That response does not address country conditions in Haiti,” Judge Reyes told one of the government lawyers, Dhruman Sampat.

The judge noted that the one-sentence reply from the State Department official had been sent just 53 minutes after the inquiry arrived on a Friday afternoon, and she suggested that the official could not have consulted experts or otherwise conducted a meaningful review.

In a back and forth that lasted more than 30 minutes, Mr. Sampat argued that the term “foreign policy” could reasonably be interpreted to encompass conditions on the ground. Judge Reyes was unconvinced. “This does not address whether it’s safe for Haitian T.P.S. holders to return to Haiti,” she said.

The named Haitian plaintiffs in the lawsuit include a registered nurse, a doctoral candidate researching Alzheimer’s disease, a woman adopted by Americans and a college student.

In a government notice, the Trump administration had cited a U.N. finding that there were “emerging signals of hope” in Haiti. But it did not refer to the U.N.’s assessments that Haiti was immersed in a “life and death emergency” and was going through one of five “highest concern” hunger crises in the world.

The judge faulted the government for “selectively” using the line from the report to justify not extending T.P.S., while ignoring a plethora of concerns about conditions in Haiti the U.N. had laid out.

“You cannot rely on the article for one thing and not the other,” Judge Reyes said.

Later in the hearing, the judge read aloud a statement from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in which he said that Haiti was facing “immediate security challenges.” The judge then asked the government lawyer if Mr. Rubio had been consulted about conditions in Haiti.

Lawyers representing the plaintiffs have also said that the government has sought to cast Haitian T.P.S. beneficiaries as criminals after identifying fewer than 900 out of 350,000 of the beneficiaries, or about .25 percent, as public safety threats.

“They are trying to fit the facts to their conclusion,” said Geoff Pipoly, a lead litigator for the plaintiffs. “Their entire process was informed by political considerations.”

T.P.S. was created by law 35 years ago to offer humanitarian protection to people from countries experiencing armed conflict, natural disasters or other “extraordinary and temporary” conditions.

While the program allows recipients to live and work legally in the United States, it does not provide a pathway to permanent residency or citizenship.

Applicants must pass background checks, and those with a felony conviction or two or more misdemeanors cannot secure the status. Its holders can obtain driver’s licenses and Social Security numbers, but they are not eligible for most public benefits.

The Trump administration has moved aggressively to cancel T.P.S. from more than one million immigrants. People who lose the status become undocumented, lose their jobs and face deportation.

Economists have warned that shedding hundreds of thousands of workers by removing T.P.S. and carrying out mass deportations could disrupt American businesses and cause prices of many goods and services to climb. Labor shortages in the hospitality, senior care and construction industries are all but certain.

Aline Gue, a Haitian community leader who attended the hearing, said, “Ending T.P.S. will not only break up our communities, it will result in the loss of billions of dollars for the U.S. economy."

“It puts our Haitians in a position to be deported to a country where there is documented mass displacement, widespread gender-based violence and no recourse for justice,” she said.

If Judge Reyes pauses the revocation for Haitians, the government is likely to appeal, and the case could end up before the Supreme Court.

Early last year, Ms. Noem announced the end of T.P.S. for about 350,000 Venezuelans who had received it in 2023 and later ordered the termination of the status for another 250,000 Venezuelans granted protection in 2021.

Ms. Noem argued that conditions in Venezuela had improved and said recipients of the program were a burden on American taxpayers. She also claimed that members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan criminal gang, were among those benefiting from the designation.

The Supreme Court in October allowed the administration to strip Venezuelans of the status while a legal challenge proceeds in lower courts.

Recently, more federal judges have pushed back against the administration’s effort to revoke T.P.S. from other foreign nationals.

On Dec. 31, a federal judge in California ruled that the Trump administration had unlawfully terminated T.P.S. for more than 60,000 people from Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua. The judge found that Ms. Noem’s revocation had been preordained and rooted in racial animus, rather than conditions on the ground, and had run afoul of the required process to wind it down.

In a separate ruling, on Dec. 30, a federal judge in Boston temporarily blocked the termination of the status for about 230 people from South Sudan, similarly finding the administration had acted unlawfully. That designation had been set to expire on Jan. 6.

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