President Trump and his administration have been working tirelessly to reverse years of illegal immigration and abuses of the country’s asylum rules under Joe Biden, and by any measure, they have been successful.
Trump got another big win this week from an Obama appointee who reversed herself following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June.
A Massachusetts federal judge has lifted a temporary stay that had protected Somali immigrants with Temporary Protected Status (TPS), allowing the Trump administration to move forward with ending those protections and beginning deportation proceedings.
U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, lifted the administrative stay Friday following a Supreme Court ruling in a related case that limited federal courts’ ability to review the Department of Homeland Security’s decisions to terminate TPS designations.
The Supreme Court ruled in June that federal law generally prevents courts from blocking DHS decisions to end TPS protections, clearing the way for the administration to terminate protections for Haitian and Syrian nationals in a case known as Mullin v. Doe.
The ruling has since been cited in challenges involving other TPS populations, including Somali nationals, as the Trump administration moves to end temporary protections granted to groups of immigrants.
The court also rejected a separate challenge claiming that then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s decision to end Haiti’s TPS designation violated the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause.
Temporary Protected Status allows nationals of countries experiencing “extraordinary and temporary conditions,” including armed conflicts, natural disasters, or other unsafe circumstances, to remain legally in the United States after the Department of Homeland Security determines that returning them would pose a danger.
Somalia was first granted TPS designation in 1991 due to ongoing instability and security concerns in the country.
On Jan. 14, 2026, Noem issued a notice terminating Somalia’s TPS designation, setting the stage for the legal challenge that ultimately led to the federal court’s review.
The plaintiffs filed a lawsuit in federal court in Massachusetts on March 9 seeking to prevent the termination of Somalia’s Temporary Protected Status designation.
Four days later, Burroughs issued an administrative stay, temporarily blocking the policy change while allowing both sides time to develop their legal arguments and requiring the government to provide the administrative record supporting the decision.
The case remained paused as the Supreme Court considered Mullin v. Doe.
After the Supreme Court issued its ruling on June 25, the Trump administration asked Burroughs to reopen the case and remove the stay, arguing that the high court’s decision provided clear guidance rejecting the plaintiffs’ claims.
Burroughs later ruled that the plaintiffs had not shown a strong likelihood of success on the merits of their case, a requirement for obtaining an injunction that would keep the protections in place.
Although the judge acknowledged that the plaintiffs had made a “convincing showing” that ending TPS could cause irreparable harm, she determined that the potential consequences did not outweigh the lack of evidence that the plaintiffs were likely to prevail in court.
The plaintiffs also argued that comments made by President Donald Trump regarding Somali immigrants could support an equal protection challenge to the administration’s decision.
Trump has repeatedly criticized Somali immigration, particularly following a high-profile fraud investigation in Minnesota involving individuals from the Somali community.
“The Somalians, what they’ve done to Minnesota, the Somalians, crooked as hell,” Trump has said, referring to Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN).
“I don’t want them in our country. I’ll be honest with you,” he noted further, per the Washington Examiner.
He also said that Somalia has little government structure, adding: “They just run around killing each other.”
