Boston (Somalia Today) – A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked Donald Trump’s administration from ending legal protections for nearly 1,100 Somalis in the United States.
The ruling handed a last-minute reprieve to a community that says deportations would expose people to detention, family separation, and danger in a country still battered by conflict.
US District Judge Allison Burroughs in Boston postponed the March 17 termination of Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, for Somali nationals.
The order preserves, for now, a humanitarian programme that allows eligible migrants to remain in the country and work legally when conditions at home are deemed unsafe.
In her order, Burroughs said the consequences of letting the programme lapse before the court could fully hear the case were too severe to ignore.
She said the plaintiffs had shown that if Somalia’s TPS designation were allowed to expire, more than 1,000 people could face “a myriad of grave risks.”
These include detention, deportation, physical violence if returned to Somalia, and forced separation from relatives in the United States.
The judge administratively stayed the effective date of the decision and set an expedited schedule to consider whether to impose a longer-term injunction.
‘Discriminatory agenda’
The ruling means Somali TPS holders, and those with pending applications, will not immediately lose work authorisation or protection from removal while the lawsuit proceeds.
The Department of Homeland Security blasted the decision, calling it the latest example of judges obstructing Trump’s effort to tighten immigration enforcement.
The administration announced in January that Somalia’s designation would end this month.
It argued that conditions in the Horn of Africa country had improved enough to justify ending the status.
Four Somali nationals, joined by African Communities Together and the Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans, sued to stop the move.
They argue that the administration’s decision was procedurally flawed and driven by a discriminatory and predetermined agenda rather than an objective review of conditions in Somalia.
The plaintiffs also point to Trump’s past remarks about Somalis as evidence of bias.
Ramla Sahid, executive director of the Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans, welcomed the ruling.
She said the decision meant that, for now, “a community whose dignity and belonging have faced racist and wrongful attacks can rest a little easier” as the legal fight continues.
Long-running status
TPS has been one of the longest-running humanitarian protections in the US immigration system for Somali nationals.
Somalia first received the designation in 1991 after the collapse of the central government and the outbreak of civil war.
Since then, successive US administrations have repeatedly renewed the protection, citing armed conflict, insecurity, and humanitarian hardship.
The Biden administration extended Somalia’s TPS designation in 2024 through March 17, 2026.
Trump’s move against Somali TPS holders is part of a broader effort to roll back the status for multiple nationalities, a campaign that has triggered a series of legal challenges.
The administration is also seeking to end protections for Haitians and Syrians, and courts have already blocked some of those efforts while appeals continue.
For Somali communities in the United States, Friday’s ruling brought immediate relief.
Advocates say the threat of losing TPS had spread fear among families who have lived and worked legally in the country for years, especially in states with large Somali populations such as Minnesota.
Security fears remain
The administration’s claim that Somalia has improved enough for safe returns is likely to remain at the centre of the legal fight.
Somalia has made gains against the Al-Shabaab Islamist militant group in recent years, with government forces and allied militias retaking territory in parts of the country.
But the insurgents continue to mount deadly attacks against security forces, government sites, and civilians, underscoring the fragility of those gains.
The United States still advises against travel to Somalia, citing terrorism, crime, civil unrest, kidnapping, piracy, and the lack of routine consular services.
Humanitarian conditions also remain severe.
The United Nations says 4.8 million people in Somalia are estimated to need humanitarian assistance in 2026, driven by prolonged drought, conflict, and recurrent disease outbreaks.
For lawyers challenging the TPS termination, those conditions make the administration’s rationale difficult to reconcile with the reality on the ground.
They also argue that many Somali beneficiaries have built families, jobs, and community ties in the United States under a system that repeatedly acknowledged the risks of return.
Burroughs’ order does not settle the case on its merits.
But by freezing the March 17 deadline, it ensures that Somali TPS holders will not immediately lose the legal protections that have allowed them to remain and work in the United States while the court weighs whether the administration acted lawfully.
