BOSTON — A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s March 17 move to end Temporary Protected Status for Somalia, keeping deportation relief and work authorization in place for Somali TPS holders while a court challenge moves ahead, March 13, 2026. U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs said the consequences of letting Somalia TPS expire were too serious to ignore before full briefing, and her order also preserved protections for people with pending Somalia TPS applications.
In a four-page order, Burroughs stayed the cutoff and said the termination is “null, void, and of no legal effect” for now. The judge said plaintiffs had described “weighty” risks if the designation expired, including detention, deportation, violence upon return to Somalia and forced family separation.
The administration had moved to end the designation in a Jan. 14 Federal Register notice, arguing Somalia no longer met the statutory conditions for TPS. But Reuters reported the decision would strip nearly 1,100 Somalis of the ability to live and work lawfully in the United States, and the court’s temporary pause now keeps those protections alive past the deadline.
Somalia TPS challenge centers on how the termination was made
The lawsuit, filed earlier this week in Boston federal court, argues the decision was procedurally flawed and discriminatory. In a March 10 report on the case, Reuters said the plaintiffs include four Somali nationals, African Communities Together and Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans, and that DHS figures cited in the challenge showed 1,082 current TPS holders and 1,383 pending applications.
DHS said Friday that “Temporary means temporary” and maintained that conditions in Somalia had improved enough to justify ending the protection. Burroughs did not rule on the merits of that claim. Instead, she issued an administrative stay so both sides can brief the issue and the court can review the record before deciding whether a longer block is warranted.
Somalia TPS timeline shows years of renewals
The dispute arrives at the end of a long TPS history, not a one-off designation. Reuters reported in 2018 that even during Trump’s first term, DHS extended Somalia’s TPS for 18 months because ongoing armed conflict and extraordinary temporary conditions still existed.
That pattern continued under the Biden administration. DHS redesignated Somalia in March 2023, extending protections through Sept. 17, 2024, then again in July 2024, pushing the designation through March 17, 2026, after finding that ongoing armed conflict and extraordinary temporary conditions still made return unsafe.
That timeline is likely to matter as the case moves forward. Plaintiffs say the record shows Somalia TPS was repeatedly renewed because the country remained unstable, while the administration now says the opposite. Friday’s order does not settle that dispute, but it does keep the status quo in place while the case moves into expedited briefing.
For now, the practical result is clear: Somali TPS holders and people with pending Somalia TPS applications do not lose their protections on March 17. Burroughs ordered the parties to quickly propose a briefing schedule, ensuring the next phase of the Somalia TPS fight will move almost as fast as the emergency order that preserved the status quo.
