A federal judge in Boston has cleared the way for the Trump administration to terminate deportation protections for Ethiopian immigrants, marking the final step in the Department of Homeland Security's effort to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for multiple countries. U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy lifted a temporary hold on Tuesday (August 18), allowing the decades-old program's termination for Ethiopian nationals who had been living and working legally in the United States.

The decision follows a June Supreme Court ruling that gave the Trump administration broad authority to end TPS designations without judicial oversight. In that 6-3 decision, the high court determined that federal courts cannot review whether DHS followed required procedures when terminating the protective status, effectively removing a major legal barrier for the administration.

The Temporary Protected Status program, created by Congress in 1990, allows foreign nationals to remain in the United States when their home countries face armed conflict, natural disasters, or other humanitarian crises. The program provides work authorization and protection from deportation, with designations that can be renewed indefinitely.

Last year, DHS concluded that conditions in Ethiopia had improved sufficiently to no longer warrant TPS protection. The decision came as part of a broader administration effort to terminate TPS for 13 countries, affecting nearly 1.3 million immigrants who had been granted the protection.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the Supreme Court's majority opinion that the TPS statute's language prohibiting judicial review "is clear, and its plain meaning is very broad." The ruling addressed cases involving Haiti and Syria but established precedent affecting all TPS designations, including Ethiopia.

The administration has argued that TPS has been extended for too long in many cases. "The T in TPS stands for TEMPORARY, yet many of these designations became de facto amnesty," DHS general counsel James Percival wrote following the Supreme Court decision.

The ruling allows the Trump administration to move forward with TPS terminations for other countries, including Venezuela, Somalia, and additional nations where lower courts had previously blocked the administration's efforts. Nearly 300,000 people still retain active TPS that has not yet expired or been terminated, including approximately 200,000 Salvadorans who have held the status for over 25 years.

Unless Congress acts to provide permanent legal status, hundreds of thousands of TPS holders now face the prospect of losing work authorization and potentially being deported to countries they left years or decades ago.

The KFAB Comment Line with Jean Stothert