BOSTON (AP) — A hearing is planned on a federal judge’s restraining order temporarily blocking the evictions of nearly 1,700 Puerto Rican hurricane evacuees from hotels across the U.S.
Judge Leo Sorokin of U.S. District Court in Springfield, Massachusetts, granted the temporary restraining order over the weekend. It extends the evacuees’ time in hotels until midnight Tuesday.
Monday’s hearing will consider further arguments on Sorokin’s injunction. The judge says ending federal housing assistance vouchers could irreparably harm desperate hurricane survivors with nowhere else to go.
The Puerto Ricans arrived after Hurricane Maria devastated the U.S. island last September, causing more than $100 billion in damage and rendering tens of thousands homeless.
Their Federal Emergency Management Agency housing vouchers originally were set to expire at midnight June 30.
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