SPRINGFIELD, Ohio — A federal judge on Monday blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from ending temporary protections that have allowed roughly 350,000 Haitians to live and work in the U.S.

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes in Washington granted a request to pause the termination of temporary protected status for Haitians while a lawsuit challenging it proceeds.

The TPS designation for people from the Caribbean island country was scheduled to expire Tuesday.

“We can breathe for a little bit,” said Rose-Thamar Joseph, the operations director of the Haitian Support Center in Springfield, Ohio. “It is not a final victory, because a judge cannot redesign a country for TPS or extend the TPS, but it means a lot for us.”

Earlier Monday, two dozen faith leaders and hundreds of congregants in Springfield sang and prayed together in support of Haitian migrants who feared their protected status could end this week. They were hopeful that the federal judge might intervene.

Reyes said in an accompanying 83-page opinion that plaintiffs were likely to prevail on the merits of the case, and that she found it “substantially likely” that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem preordained her termination decision because of “hostility to nonwhite immigrants.”

“During the stay, the Termination shall be null, void, and of no legal effect,” the judge said in her two-page order, adding that for now, the termination has no bearing on their ability to work and to be protected from detention and deportation.

Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin denounced the ruling as “lawless activism.”

“Haiti’s TPS was granted following an earthquake that took place over 15 years ago,” she said in a statement. “It was never intended to be a de facto amnesty program, yet that’s how previous administrations have used it for decades.”

Temporary Protected Status can be granted by the Homeland Security secretary if conditions in home countries are deemed unsafe for return due to a natural disaster, political instability or other dangers. While it grants TPS holders the right to live and work in the U.S., it does not provide a legal pathway to citizenship.

Haiti’s TPS status was initially activated in 2010 after a catastrophic earthquake and has been extended multiple times. The country is racked by gang violence that has displaced hundreds of thousands of people.

The Trump administration has aggressively sought to remove the protection, making more people eligible for deportation. The moves are part of the administration’s wider, mass deportation effort.