[JURIST] Lawyers representing a group of hurricane victims in New Orleans have asked a US federal judge to grant a temporary restraining order preventing the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) [official website] from evicting 12,000 families still left homeless from Hurricane Katrina [JURIST news archive] and Hurricane Rita. FEMA announced on Saturday that it would begin to evict the families [FEMA press release] Monday from federally funded hotels [FEMA report], saying 88 percent of them have been given checks to help pay for apartments, prolonged hotel stays, or to repair their houses. According to the motion filed with Judge Stanwood Duval, FEMA has violated a court order since many of the homeless victims did not receive promised trailers and did not receive the notice of eviction in writing before January 30.

This marks the second round of major evictions by FEMA, which cancelled funding [JURIST report] for approximately 4,500 families staying in hotels last week because they did not register with the agency. AP has more.

1:07 PM ET - AP is reporting that Judge Duval has denied the motion, allowing FEMA to go ahead with its plan to end federally-funded hotel stays for hurricane evacuees.

Previously in JURIST's Paper Chase...

• FEMA ends hotel stays for thousands of Katrina victims
• Judge orders FEMA to extend Katrina hotel stays
• Katrina victims ask for extended hotel stays in FEMA lawsuit
• Katrina victims file class action against FEMA