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After months of legal back-and-forth, a federal district court judge in Massachusetts lifted the administrative stay blocking the termination of Somalia’s temporary protected status (TPS) designation on August 14. The move puts thousands of Somalis in the U.S. at risk of immediate detention, deportation, loss of work authorization, and family separation.

The initial termination was announced on January 13, 2026, by then-Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, who gave just 60 days’ notice before the designation would expire. Noem argued that: “Country conditions in Somalia have improved to the point that it no longer meets the law’s requirement for Temporary Protected Status … allowing Somali nationals to remain temporarily in the United States is contrary to our national interest. We are putting Americans first.”

The mid-winter announcement came after months of racist rhetoric from the Trump administration aimed at the Somali community, and at the height of “Operation Metro Surge,” a sweeping immigration crackdown in Minnesota that sparked weeks of sustained protests and confrontations between residents and federal agents, resulting in the agent-perpetrated killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti.

In March 2026, a class-action lawsuit challenged the termination of Somalia’s TPS designation, arguing that it was unlawful and seeking to keep the protections in place while the case proceeded through the courts.

On March 13, a federal district court in Boston issued an administrative stay blocking the termination from going into effect — a victory that would prove short-lived. In June, the Supreme Court’s ruling in Mullin v. Doe, a case challenging the Trump administration’s termination of TPS for Haitian and Syrian nationals, changed the legal landscape for TPS holders nationwide.

Trump Is Already Outpacing His First-Term Record Number of Airstrikes on Somalia

In a 6-3 ruling, Muslim Advocates explains, the court decided that federal courts “no longer have the power to review non-constitutional arguments challenging a proper decision to end TPS for a specific country.” The decision sharply limited the lower courts’ ability to block TPS terminations, putting existing administrative stays (including Somalia’s) at risk, and paving the way for over 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians to lose their legal status and right to work in the United States.

The Trump Administration’s Assault on TPS

Congress first established TPS through the Immigration Act of 1990 with overwhelming bipartisan support. The humanitarian program protects nationals of designated countries from deportation and grants them authorization to work in the United States for periods of six to 18 months, but does not offer a pathway to permanent residency or citizenship. To qualify for TPS designation, a country must be experiencing ongoing armed conflict, environmental disaster, or other extraordinary and temporary conditions. At the end of each designation period, the Department of Homeland Security must review the country’s conditions and decide whether to extend or terminate the designation.

Somalia has maintained its TPS designation since 1991, following the Somali civil war and ensuing strife. As of the end of 2025, there were an estimated 1,082 Somali TPS holders and another 1,383 with pending applications who now find themselves without legal protections and with little clarity about what happens next.

Sadaf Hasan, an........

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