Ruling continues pattern of TPS terminations affecting more than a million
U.S. District Court Judge Brian E. Murphy issued the ruling Tuesday, denying African Communities Together’s request to postpone the termination while the group’s legal challenge proceeds. The advocacy group had argued that ending TPS violated its clients’ constitutional rights and that then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem did not have the authority to terminate the status. The lawyers maintained that only the attorney general held that power. Murphy rejected those claims, finding that the Department of Homeland Security had not acted illegally in removing the protections.
TPS grants temporary permission to live and work in the United States to nationals of countries experiencing armed conflict, natural disasters, or other humanitarian crises. Ethiopians began arriving in the United States in 2020 when war broke out in the Tigray state and spread to other parts of the country. The African Union has said the conflict has killed hundreds of thousands.
The Biden administration granted TPS to some Ethiopians for 18 months, and then-Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas extended the designation because the war was still ongoing. With Murphy’s denial of the postponement request, the Trump administration’s termination of the Ethiopian TPS designation can proceed.
The decision is the latest in a series of court rulings that have removed TPS protections from more than a million people. In June, the Supreme Court ruled that the administration may end TPS for Haitians and Syrians, a decision that has set the stage for further terminations of protected status.