Boston. Immigrant rights advocates have filed a lawsuit seeking to stop the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump from ending legal protections that allow nearly 1,100 Somalis to live and work in the United States.
The lawsuit, filed on Monday in a federal court in Boston by four Somalis and two advocacy groups, challenges a decision by the United States Department of Homeland Security to terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Somali immigrants.
Outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in January announced that TPS for Somalis would end on March 17, arguing that conditions in Somalia had improved, despite ongoing fighting between Somali forces and al‑Shabaab militants.
The plaintiffs, who include the groups African Communities Together and Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans, argue the decision was procedurally flawed and driven by a discriminatory, predetermined agenda.
The lawsuit cites a series of remarks attributed to Trump in which he described Somalis as “garbage” and “low IQ people” who “contribute nothing”.
According to the plaintiffs, the administration is ending TPS for Somalia and other countries because of unconstitutional bias against non-white immigrants rather than objective assessments of conditions in those countries.
“The termination of TPS for Somalia is racism masking as immigration policy,” said Omar Farah in a statement.
The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment. It has previously said TPS was “never intended to be a de facto amnesty programme”.
TPS is a humanitarian immigration protection that shields eligible migrants from deportation and allows them to work. Under Noem, DHS has moved to end TPS for a dozen countries, prompting several legal challenges.
The administration on Saturday also announced plans to appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States in a bid to end TPS for more than 350,000 Haitians. It has also asked the court to allow it to terminate protections for about 6,000 Syrians.
Somali community targeted
Somalia was first designated for TPS in 1991, with its latest extension granted in 2024. About 1,082 Somalis currently hold TPS, while another 1,383 have pending applications, according to DHS.
Somalis in Minnesota have recently become a focus of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. Officials cited a fraud scandal involving individuals from the state’s large Somali community.
The administration pointed to the allegations as justification for a months-long immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota, a Democratic-led state, during which about 3,000 immigration agents were deployed. The operation sparked protests and led to the killing of two U.S. citizens by federal agents.
In November, Trump announced plans to end TPS for Somalis in Minnesota, and a month later said he wanted them sent “back to where they came from”.
The United States Department of State currently advises against travel to Somalia, citing crime and civil unrest among the risks.
