Federal judge lifts stay on Somalia TPS termination, clearing path for deportations

U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs in Boston lifted a legal barrier blocking the Department of Homeland Security from terminating Somalia's Temporary Protected Status designation, per reporting from Fox News. The ruling allows the Trump administration to move forward with ending TPS protections for Somali nationals, potentially exposing affected migrants who lack another lawful basis to remain in the U.S. to deportation.

Judge Burroughs cited a June Supreme Court ruling in Mullin v. Doe that sharply limited judicial review of similar administration actions in her decision to lift the stay. The Supreme Court found in that case that the TPS statute bars judicial review of certain non-constitutional decisions by the administration to terminate TPS designations, and that plaintiffs' equal protection challenge was unlikely to succeed. The ruling has curtailed lower courts' ability to review Trump administration efforts to terminate TPS designations for nationals of multiple countries.

The Trump administration announced in January that it planned to terminate Somalia's TPS designation. Then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem argued that conditions in Somalia had improved enough to end the humanitarian protections. According to sources at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services who spoke to Fox News Digital, 2,471 Somali nationals in the U.S. currently have TPS, and 1,383 Somali nationals have pending TPS applications, though these figures were not independently verified.

Judge Burroughs, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, had previously blocked the termination from taking effect in a lawsuit brought by four Somali nationals and two advocacy groups, including African Communities Together. The plaintiffs challenged the termination arguing that the administration's decision was motivated by bias against non-White immigrants, pointing to Trump's previous descriptions of Somalis as "garbage" and "low IQ people." Following the Supreme Court's Mullin v. Doe ruling, the plaintiffs filed an amended complaint raising new constitutional claims, alleging that the administration violated the Fifth Amendment by terminating Somalia's TPS designation based on racial and national-origin discrimination.

Judge Burroughs issued an administrative stay earlier this month after the plaintiffs alleged such discrimination. In Friday's ruling, the judge said the plaintiffs had presented a compelling case but concluded that the Supreme Court's decision constrained her ability to continue blocking the administration's action. "Plaintiffs have made a convincing showing that they will suffer irreparable harm if the injunction is withheld," per the judge's written statement reported by Fox News. "The balance of hardships and the public interest also favor Plaintiffs, given that the government has made no showing that maintaining TPS status for the duration of this litigation would impose an undue burden." Despite those findings, she wrote that she was "bound to view things through the Mullin prism."