Somalis Deported: TPS Termination, Court Stay, and Enforcement

Somalis have not been deported en masse under the Temporary Protected Status termination announced in January 2026, because a federal court in Massachusetts paused the termination three days before it was set to take effect. As of mid-2026, roughly 2,471 Somali nationals with TPS and 1,383 with pending applications remain protected under that stay, but a June Supreme Court decision in related Syria and Haiti cases has sharply narrowed what courts can do about TPS terminations going forward.¹²

What the TPS Termination Does

On January 13, 2026, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem announced that Somalia no longer met the statutory conditions for Temporary Protected Status and that the designation would terminate on March 17, 2026.³ Somalia had held TPS continuously since September 1991, when the country’s civil war and the collapse of its central government first triggered the designation.⁴

The Federal Register notice framed Somalia as having transitioned from a “failed state” to a “fragile state” with only localized violence, and it cited national security concerns, arguing that meaningful vetting was “virtually impossible” because of a gap in U.S. diplomatic engagement with Somalia between 1991 and 2013 and the absence of reliable civil and criminal records from that era.⁵

Termination means that people who held TPS as their only lawful status would fall out of status once the designation ends, losing both protection from removal and work authorization. USCIS has noted two things that soften the edges: someone who held a valid immigration status before receiving TPS reverts to that status when TPS ends, and holding TPS before filing for asylum can qualify as an “extraordinary circumstance” that excuses the usual one-year asylum filing deadline.⁴ TPS itself has never been a path to permanent residence, and the Federal Register notice reiterated that judicial review of the Secretary’s termination decision is barred by statute.⁵

The Court Stay Currently Keeping Protections in Place

On March 10, 2026, a coalition led by African Communities Together and the Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans, joined by three Somali TPS holders and one applicant, sued in the District of Massachusetts. Muslim Advocates, the Haitian Bridge Alliance, and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund represent the plaintiffs. The complaint alleges the review process was “infected by procedural deficiencies and driven by a preordained and discriminatory agenda.”⁶

Three days before the termination was set to take effect, on March 13, 2026, the court issued an administrative stay preserving TPS protections while it weighed the case.⁴ The stay keeps work authorization in place and blocks removal on the basis of the termination alone. On May 1, 2026, the court extended the pause and tied its next steps to Supreme Court rulings expected in TPS cases involving Syria and Haiti.² USCIS has confirmed that employment authorization documents remain valid through at least July 1, 2026.⁷

How the Supreme Court’s June Ruling Changed the Legal Ground

On June 25, 2026, the Supreme Court decided the consolidated Syria and Haiti cases Mullin v. Doe and Trump v. Miot by a 6-3 vote. The majority held that the statute governing TPS bars judicial review of the Secretary’s termination decisions across all non-constitutional claims. Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority, concluded that the review-bar language has a “broad, clear meaning” reaching the procedural steps behind a termination, not just the ultimate decision.⁸

The Court also found the Haitian plaintiffs’ equal protection claim, which argued the termination was racially motivated, “unlikely to succeed.” The majority said that while some presidential statements were “heated,” none were “overtly racial,” and that the plaintiffs’ own arguments showed the administration’s approach was to terminate every expiring TPS designation regardless of country. The opinion cited Somalia’s 35-year TPS designation as an example and noted that 13 TPS designations had been terminated under that approach.⁹

For the Somalia case, the practical effect is significant. Procedural and statutory challenges of the sort the plaintiffs raised are the kind the Court just held courts cannot hear. Constitutional claims remain available on paper, but the same opinion signaled deep skepticism of the leading such theory. The Massachusetts stay stands for now; the runway for extending it has narrowed.

Enforcement Operations Against Somali Communities

Enforcement activity aimed at Somalis began before the formal termination. President Trump signaled the move on November 21, 2025, posting on Truth Social that he would terminate TPS for Somalis in Minnesota “effective immediately.”¹⁰ By early December, ICE had deployed roughly 100 officers from across the country in “strike teams” to the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, targeting hundreds of undocumented Somali immigrants, primarily those with final deportation orders.¹¹

Operation Catch of the Day in Maine

In January 2026, ICE launched “Operation Catch of the Day” in southern Maine, working from a target list of 1,400 immigrants. Over five days beginning January 20, agents arrested about 190 people.¹²¹³

Federal data obtained by the Bangor Daily News showed that only 11 of those roughly 190 people had a recorded criminal history, and about 80 percent were detained solely for immigration violations. The largest nationality groups were Angolan (40) and Ecuadorian (36); no members of Maine’s Somali community appeared in the federal arrest data, despite the operation being publicly linked to the Somali crackdown.¹³ Court records reviewed by the Maine Monitor identified cases that contradicted ICE’s public framing: one detainee, Elmara Correia, was flagged by ICE for “endangering the welfare of a child,” but the underlying 2023 charge was a learner’s permit violation that had been dismissed. Attorneys filed at least 12 habeas corpus petitions challenging the rapid transfer of detainees to facilities in Massachusetts.¹⁴

The CBP Home App and Self-Deportation Offer

Somali nationals losing TPS were directed to a mobile application called CBP Home to arrange their own departure. The app offers a free plane ticket, an exit bonus originally set at $1,000 and raised to $2,600 as of January 21, 2026, and forgiveness of civil fines related to failure to depart.³ DHS said over 100,000 people had used the app across all nationalities by mid-2026.¹⁵

Advocates have flagged practical risks. Some immigrants who left the country after registering never received the promised exit payments. In at least one case, a mother and her children were detained by ICE at what they believed was a CBP Home appointment. Registering also operates as an admission of living in the U.S. without status, which can complicate any later attempt to return legally. Jennifer Ibañez Whitlock of the National Immigration Law Center called the app “designed to sow confusion” and the approach “deceptive and cruel.”¹⁵

Deportation to Third Countries

Deportation from the United States does not necessarily mean removal to Somalia. The administration has struck agreements with several African governments to accept third-country nationals. On April 2, 2026, the first flight under a U.S.-Uganda agreement landed with 12 deportees whose nationalities were not publicly disclosed. An unnamed Ugandan official described their stay as a “transition phase for potential onward transmission to other countries.” The U.S. has also sent deportees to Eswatini, Ghana, Rwanda, and South Sudan, and paid Eswatini $5.1 million to accept up to 160 third-country nationals.¹⁶

What Deportees Face in Somalia

The U.S. State Department maintains its most severe travel warning for Somalia, Level 4: Do Not Travel, citing crime, terrorism, civil unrest, kidnapping, and piracy. U.S. government personnel in Somalia are confined to the Mogadishu International Airport complex because of security risks.¹⁷

Human Rights Watch reported that al-Shabaab continued indiscriminate attacks, targeted assassinations, and suicide bombings throughout 2025 and had regained territory in central Somalia and areas south of Mogadishu.¹⁸ Between April 2023 and July 2025, the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project recorded more than 7,200 security incidents and over 18,000 fatalities. Roughly 3.5 million Somalis were internally displaced as of mid-2025, and 6 million people required humanitarian assistance, including 1.7 million children with acute malnutrition.¹⁹

Deportee accounts track those conditions. Mahad Mohamud told the BBC he received death threats from al-Shabaab by text message after his return and was living in a “well protected home.” Another deportee described losing what he had built in the U.S. and seeing “no employment” in Somalia.²⁰ Al Jazeera interviewed men in Mogadishu who said “explosions are reality” and that “every road I take can lead to death.” Many had left Somalia as children, had lost fluency in the language, and drew suspicion for tattoos and Western mannerisms; some had joined the police or national army for about $200 a month despite the danger of wearing a uniform.²¹ A Georgetown Immigration Law Journal study based on interviews with 18 Somali Bantu deportees found that most had been kidnapped and tortured for ransom after arrival, sometimes by government security personnel at Mogadishu’s airport, sometimes by clan militias within weeks of landing.²²

Where This Leaves a Somali TPS Holder Now

The termination is on hold, not undone. Somali TPS beneficiaries retain their status while the Massachusetts stay remains in place, and USCIS has confirmed that existing employment authorization documents run through at least July 1, 2026.⁷ Anyone who held another lawful immigration status before receiving TPS would return to that status if the termination ultimately takes effect, and time spent on TPS can count as an extraordinary circumstance excusing the one-year asylum filing deadline for those who have a fear-based claim to bring.⁴

The direction of travel, however, is set by the Supreme Court. With procedural and statutory challenges to TPS terminations now foreclosed and the leading constitutional theory called “unlikely to succeed” by the majority in the Syria and Haiti cases, the Somalia stay rests on narrower ground than it did when it was issued.⁹ Individuals in this position generally have more to gain from consulting an immigration attorney about alternative forms of relief, including asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture, than from acting on the CBP Home offer, which carries its own legal consequences.

1
BBC News. Trump Administration Ends Temporary Protected Status for Somalis
2
Muslim Advocates. Court Extends Pause on TPS for Somalia
3
USCIS. Homeland Security Terminates Somalia’s Temporary Protected Status Designation
4
USCIS. Temporary Protected Status Designated Country: Somalia
5
Federal Register. Termination of the Designation of Somalia for Temporary Protected Status
6
NAACP Legal Defense Fund. New Lawsuit Challenges Trump Administration’s Termination of TPS for Somalia
7
USCIS. Update on Termination of TPS for Somalia
8
SCOTUSblog. Supreme Court Allows Trump Administration to End Removal Protections for Syrian and Haitian Nationals
9
Supreme Court of the United States. Mullin v. Doe, No. 25-1083
10
Office of Representative Ilhan Omar. Congressional Inquiry on Somali TPS
11
The New York Times. ICE Targets Somali Migrants in Minneapolis-St. Paul
12
The Guardian. Trump Administration Launches ICE Crackdown on Somali Immigrants in Maine
13
Bangor Daily News. ICE Maine Surge Data
14
The Maine Monitor. Court Records Raise Doubts ICE Detaining Worst of the Worst
15
Cascadia Daily. CBP Home Promises Benefits for Immigrants Without Status Who Self-Deport
16
The Guardian. Uganda Receives First US Deportation Flight Under Third-Country Agreement
17
America’s Voice. U.S. Tells Somali and Venezuelan Immigrants It’s Safe to Go Home but Advises American Travelers to Stay Away
18
Human Rights Watch. World Report 2026: Somalia
19
European Union Agency for Asylum. Security Situation in Somalia: Recent Events
20
BBC News. Somali Deportees Describe Experiences After Return
21
Al Jazeera. Somalia Is Dangerous: Former US Deportees Struggle With Fear, Uncertainty
22
Georgetown Immigration Law Journal. Removals to Somalia in Light of the Convention Against Torture