A federal judge on Tuesday cleared the way for the Trump administration to end deportation protections for Ethiopian immigrants, putting into effect all of the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) terminations the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has pursued for select countries.
U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy in Boston lifted a temporary hold on the decades-old TPS program, which allowed Ethiopian nationals to live and work legally in the U.S. as their home country was considered unsafe. Last year, DHS determined that Ethiopia no longer met the conditions for TPS, asserting that conditions in the country had improved.
The decision removes the final legal hurdle facing DHS after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that the administration could terminate similar protections for thousands of people from Haiti and Syria.
"ALL TPS terminations are now IN EFFECT," the DHS said in a post on X. "Those with terminated TPS should leave NOW. If they don’t, we will DEPORT them."
The decision to terminate the deportation protections was part of a split ruling by Murphy, who had previously issued an administrative stay in African Communities Together v. Markwayne Mullin. In the civil case, plaintiffs argued that DHS terminated the protections due to racial and national-origin discrimination.
In the ruling, Murphy found that DHS has the authority to terminate TPS designations and that individuals were not entitled to individual hearings before the nationwide program was terminated.
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Concurrently, Murphy allowed the plaintiffs' primary claim to move forward, finding that they had presented a plausible case that the government ended the protections due to discrimination, allegedly violating the Fifth Amendment Equal Protection Clause.
Temporary Protected Status (TPS) is a humanitarian program established by Congress in 1990 that grants temporary work authorization and protection from deportation to noncitizens whose home countries are deemed unsafe due to ongoing armed conflict, natural disasters or other extraordinary conditions.
Ethiopia was first designated for the program on Dec. 12, 2022, following ongoing armed conflict and severe climatic shocks.
Last December, the Secretary of Homeland Security terminated Ethiopia's TPS designation, setting an effective end date of Feb. 13, 2026. The termination sparked immediate legal challenges, resulting in a series of temporary court-ordered pauses that have now been dissolved by the latest ruling.