By Jack Queen

(Reuters) -A federal appeals court on Wednesday cleared the way for President Donald Trump’s administration to end temporary deportation protections and cancel work permits for more than 60,000 immigrants from Central America and Nepal.

The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit allows the government to end Temporary Protected Status for immigrants from Nicaragua, Honduras and Nepal while a court challenge to that policy plays out. The three judges who signed the order did not provide legal reasoning.

The order immediately ends protections for Nepalis, which expired on August 5. Protections for Hondurans and Nicaraguans will expire on September 8.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that the decision will help restore integrity to the immigration system and stop Temporary Protected Status from being used as a “de facto asylum system.”

Ahilan Arulanantham of the UCLA Center for Immigration Law and Policy, one of the groups that filed the lawsuit, criticized the court for not providing reasoning and said the decision “simply sanctions the government’s power grab.”

U.S. District Judge Trina L. Thompson had temporarily blocked the administration from canceling the protections in a sharply worded ruling in July, where she found the government’s decision was likely motivated by racial animus.

(Reporting by Jack Queen in New York; Editing by Stephen Coates)