The Department of Homeland Security terminated Temporary Protected Status for Somalia on January 13, 2026, with the termination scheduled to take effect on March 17, 2026.1USCIS. Homeland Security Terminates Somalia’s Temporary Protected Status Designation A federal court in Massachusetts has paused the termination while litigation continues, but a June 25, 2026 Supreme Court decision has largely removed the courts’ authority to block DHS from ending TPS designations. Somali nationals with TPS still have legal status for now, but the legal ground beneath that protection has collapsed.
What DHS Decided and Why
Secretary Kristi Noem announced the termination on January 13, 2026, and the notice appeared in the Federal Register the next day. “Allowing Somali nationals to remain temporarily in the United States is contrary to our national interests,” Noem said. “We are putting Americans first.”1USCIS. Homeland Security Terminates Somalia’s Temporary Protected Status Designation
The Federal Register notice built its case on more than country conditions. DHS argued that the 1991 collapse of the Somali government and the long absence of a U.S. Embassy — not permanently reestablished until 2018 — had left the United States without reliable access to Somali records. The agency said this made “meaningful vetting virtually impossible” for identity, criminal history, and terrorist affiliations, creating “significant public safety and national security risks” that supported ending the designation.2Federal Register. Termination of the Designation of Somalia for Temporary Protected Status
Somalia had held TPS since September 1991, shortly after the government’s collapse. Successive administrations renewed the designation 27 times over more than three decades, citing armed conflict, clan violence, food insecurity, and the al-Shabaab militant group.3Ilhan Omar, U.S. House of Representatives. Congressional Inquiry on Somali TPS
Who Is Affected
The population directly touched by the termination is relatively small. DHS counted 2,471 Somali nationals with active TPS and 1,383 with pending applications.4BBC News. Trump Administration Ends TPS for Somalis A separate figure from a congressional inquiry placed the number at 705 nationwide as of March 2025, likely reflecting a different counting method.3Ilhan Omar, U.S. House of Representatives. Congressional Inquiry on Somali TPS
An important boundary: most Somali-Americans, including the large community concentrated in Minnesota, are not TPS holders and are not directly affected by the termination itself. Nearly 58% of Somali-Americans were born in the United States, and 87% of the foreign-born population has been naturalized.5PBS NewsHour. Surge in Federal Officers in Minnesota Focuses on Alleged Fraud at Day Care Centers Most originally arrived as refugees after the 1991 civil war, on a separate legal pathway from TPS. If you or your family member came through refugee resettlement, asylum, a green card, or naturalization, the TPS termination does not change that status.
The Court Stay and Why It May Not Hold
On March 9, 2026, African Communities Together and the Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans, joined by four anonymous individuals, sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts to block the termination. The complaint, African Communities Together v. Noem, argued that DHS violated the Administrative Procedure Act by skipping mandatory review procedures and ignoring humanitarian conditions in Somalia, and that the decision was motivated by discriminatory animus.6Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse. African Communities Together v. Noem
Four days before TPS was set to expire, on March 13, 2026, Judge Allison D. Burroughs granted an administrative stay. Under the stay, Somali TPS holders kept their legal status, their work authorization, and their protection from deportation.7USCIS. Temporary Protected Status Designated Country: Somalia On May 1, 2026, the court extended the pause pending the Supreme Court’s consideration of related TPS cases involving Syria and Haiti.8Muslim Advocates. Court Extends Pause on TPS for Somalia
Then, on June 25, 2026, the Supreme Court decided Mullin v. Doe and Trump v. Miot in a 6-3 ruling. The Court held that 8 U.S.C. §1254a(b)(5)(A) bars judicial review of the Secretary of Homeland Security’s decisions to designate, extend, or terminate TPS. The majority called the statutory language “very broad” and said it “squarely bars all of respondents’ non-constitutional claims.”9Cornell Law Institute. Mullin v. Doe
The ruling specifically named African Communities Together v. Noem as one of the cases where lower courts had wrongly granted interim relief.10Supreme Court of the United States. Mullin v. Doe Opinion The Court also found that even the equal protection claim raised in the Haiti case was “unlikely to succeed,” because the administration pointed to a race-neutral policy of terminating all expiring TPS designations.
What that means in practical terms: the Massachusetts stay remains technically in place as of late June 2026, but the Supreme Court’s ruling has removed its legal foundation. The administration can return to the district court and seek to dissolve it. Only constitutional claims survive at all, and the Court has signaled those face steep odds. Advocacy groups have described the combined effect across all affected countries as putting more than 1.3 million people at risk of losing legal status.11International Refugee Assistance Project. SCOTUS Gives Trump Administration Carte Blanche to Strip Legal Status
What Somali TPS Holders Can Do Now
For anyone with Somali TPS or a pending application, the practical question is what other legal pathway may be available before the stay dissolves. Attorneys have been moving TPS holders into the asylum system where possible. Immigration attorney Amiin Harun warned that “time is not on their side.”12Sahan Journal. Trump End Temporary Protected Status Somalis Minnesota The immigration court system has been rescheduling Somali asylum cases at an accelerated pace, with roughly 3,254 cases pending.13NPR. Somali Asylum Cases Rescheduled
Somali nationals who do not have another legal status have been directed by USCIS to use the CBP Home mobile app to arrange their own departure. The agency has offered a complimentary plane ticket, a $1,000 “exit bonus,” and what it describes as the possibility of future legal immigration opportunities for those who leave voluntarily.1USCIS. Homeland Security Terminates Somalia’s Temporary Protected Status Designation
Consulting an immigration attorney quickly matters more than usual here, because the window between the Supreme Court’s ruling and the likely dissolution of the district court stay is the only period when TPS still shields work authorization and legal presence.
Enforcement on the Ground
The termination has arrived alongside an aggressive enforcement campaign, particularly in Minnesota, which is relevant to how much risk lapsed TPS holders face in practice. In early December 2025, ICE deployed approximately 100 officers to Minneapolis and St. Paul in “strike teams” targeting Somali immigrants with final deportation orders. Officials acknowledged that people still seeking legal status could also be “swept up.”14The New York Times. ICE Targets Somali Migrants in Minneapolis-St. Paul
By January 2026, roughly 2,000 federal agents from ICE and U.S. Border Patrol were deployed under an operation the administration called “Operation Metro Surge.” Community members have begun carrying passports and identification at all times as a precaution against detention, even when they are U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents.15CNN. ICE and Federal Agents Deploy to Minnesota
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, joined by Minneapolis and Saint Paul, sued the federal government on January 12, 2026, to halt the operation. The complaint named DHS, Secretary Noem, ICE, Customs and Border Protection, and Border Patrol as defendants, and alleged violations of the First Amendment, the Tenth Amendment, and the Administrative Procedure Act.16Minnesota Attorney General. Minnesota Files Lawsuit Against Federal Immigration Operation DHS called the suit “baseless.”
Conditions in Somalia
Country conditions matter for two reasons: they are what TPS was originally built on, and they bear on any asylum claim a former TPS holder now files. The U.S. State Department has for years maintained its highest-level “Do Not Travel” advisory for Somalia, citing terrorism, kidnapping, violent crime, and piracy.17MPR News. If Somalia Is Too Dangerous for Travel, Why Not Deportation
Al-Shabaab, an Islamist militant group that did not exist before 2006, controls significant territory and treats Somalis returning from Western countries with particular suspicion. Attorneys representing deportees have said al-Shabaab recruits among returnees, forcing a choice between fighting for the group or being killed.17MPR News. If Somalia Is Too Dangerous for Travel, Why Not Deportation Amnesty International has assessed that it is not safe to return Somali nationals to southern and central Somalia, including Mogadishu, and the UNHCR has urged governments to grant complementary protection to Somali nationals who may not meet strict refugee criteria.18Amnesty International. Returns to Southern and Central Somalia
Immigration attorney Kim Hunter has argued that the federal government’s position of simultaneously labeling Somalia too dangerous for American travelers while deporting people there is difficult to reconcile. That contradiction is one of the substantive points a Somali national’s asylum application can raise, since asylum turns on a well-founded fear of persecution.
Somalia in the Wider TPS Rollback
The Somalia decision is one piece of a broader campaign. Since taking office, the Trump administration has moved to terminate TPS for nationals of Venezuela (348,202 people), Afghanistan (11,700), Cameroon (5,200), Nepal (12,700), Haiti (348,187), Honduras (72,000), and Nicaragua (4,000).19Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck. The Trump Administration and Temporary Protected Status After the June 25 Supreme Court ruling, roughly 300,000 people with TPS not yet expired or terminated — including approximately 200,000 Salvadorans and 50,000 Ukrainians — also face heightened risk.20American Immigration Council. Supreme Court Immigration Ruling on TPS and Asylum Seekers
For a Somali TPS holder deciding what to do next, the takeaway from that broader pattern is that appeals to the courts to preserve TPS itself are no longer a realistic strategy. The action has shifted to individual applications for asylum or other relief, and to how quickly those applications can move through a system that is already reshuffling its docket around Somali cases.