President Donald Trump scored a significant legal victory Tuesday after a federal judge cleared his administration to terminate deportation protections for more than 5,000 Ethiopian nationals living in the US.
U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy in Boston lifted the final judicial barrier preventing the Department of Homeland Security from ending Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, for Ethiopians.
The decision marks another courtroom victory for the Trump administration as it moves to unwind humanitarian immigration programs expanded under former President Joe Biden.
Temporary Protected Status allows eligible foreign nationals already present in the US to temporarily remain in the country and obtain work authorization when their home nations are experiencing armed conflict, natural disasters or other extraordinary conditions.
The Biden administration designated Ethiopia for TPS in 2022, citing armed conflict and a humanitarian crisis in the African nation.
The Trump administration subsequently determined that conditions no longer warranted continued blanket protections and moved to terminate Ethiopia’s TPS designation.
Murphy initially blocked that effort in April after several Ethiopian nationals and African Communities Together challenged the administration’s decision.
The judge said at the time that DHS had failed to properly comply with statutory requirements and had provided what he characterized as a “pretextual” justification for ending the protections.
The legal landscape changed significantly in June, however, when the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to terminate similar protections covering thousands of migrants from Haiti and Syria.
Following that decision, Murphy temporarily maintained his injunction while considering whether other arguments raised by the Ethiopian plaintiffs could independently prevent the administration from moving forward.
One centered on whether DHS possessed the legal authority to terminate TPS designations.
Plaintiffs argued that the 1990 law establishing the program vested that authority in the attorney general rather than DHS, which was not created until after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Judges overseeing similar cases involving nationals from South Sudan, Myanmar and Somalia recently rejected that argument.
Murphy followed suit Tuesday, dismissing that challenge and other claims that had prevented the Ethiopian TPS termination from taking effect.
James Percival, DHS’s general counsel, celebrated the development on social media, as Trending Politics reported.
“All TPS terminations are in effect!” Percival wrote.
The decision does not completely conclude the legal battle.
Murphy said plaintiffs could continue pursuing a separate constitutional claim alleging that the administration’s decision was motivated by racial or national-origin discrimination in violation of the Fifth Amendment.
The plaintiffs maintain that dangerous conditions persist in Ethiopia and allege that the administration has disproportionately targeted protections afforded to migrants from non-white and non-European countries.
The Trump administration disputes those allegations and has argued that TPS was created as a temporary humanitarian measure rather than a mechanism allowing recipients to remain indefinitely in the US.
For now, Tuesday’s decision means the administration can proceed with terminating TPS protections for more than 5,000 Ethiopians, advancing another component of Trump’s broader immigration and deportation agenda.
