DHS Secretary Noem terminated Temporary Protected Status for Somalia, stripping deportation protection from about 2,500 Somalis

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem announced on January 14, 2026 that the department was terminating Somalia's Temporary Protected Status designation, effective March 17, 2026. Noem said "country conditions in Somalia have improved to the point that it no longer meets the law's requirement for Temporary Protected Status," and that continuing the designation would be "contrary to our national interests." The Federal Register notice cited a mix of justifications: that Somalia is "no longer experiencing an ongoing armed conflict" but only "localized pockets of violence," with regions such as Somaliland and Puntland offering areas where nationals "may live in safety"; elevated visa overstay rates for Somali nationals (21.3 percent, more than nine times the 2.3 percent global average); limited U.S. vetting capability given the absence of a full diplomatic presence since 1991; and several criminal cases involving Somali nationals, including a $250 million child-nutrition program fraud scheme. The termination affects approximately 2,500 people — 1,082 individuals enrolled in TPS as of December 8, 2025, and 1,383 pending applicants — who become eligible for deportation once the designation lapses.

The termination was announced amid an ongoing ICE enforcement surge in Minneapolis, home to the nation's largest Somali-American community. President Trump had separately made repeated derogatory public statements about Somali immigrants, including describing people from Somalia as "garbage" in December 2025 and saying their "country stinks."

Updates

2026-03-09 — Advocacy groups and TPS holders sued to block the termination [3]

African Communities Together, the Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans, and four individual TPS beneficiaries sued Secretary Noem, DHS, and USCIS in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts (African Communities Together v. Noem, No. 1:26-cv-11201), alleging the termination violated the Administrative Procedure Act, failed the TPS statute's required good-faith country-conditions review, and violated the Fifth Amendment's equal protection guarantee. A federal judge granted an administrative stay on March 13, 2026, four days before the scheduled March 17 termination, pausing it while the case proceeded.

2026-08-14 — Judge lifted the litigation stay, clearing the way for the termination to take effect [4]

U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs lifted the stay that had paused the termination since March, citing the Supreme Court's June 2026 ruling in Mullin v. Doe limiting judicial review of TPS termination decisions. Burroughs found plaintiffs had "made a convincing showing that they will suffer irreparable harm" but wrote she was "bound ... to view things through the Mullin prism," and denied their motion for a preliminary injunction. The termination took effect immediately.