US Federal Judge Blocks Trump Move to End Legal Status of 5,000 Ethiopians

A federal judge on Wednesday halted a move by US President Donald Trump’s administration to end legal protections granted to more than 5,000 Ethiopians, which have allowed them to live and work in the United States.

The ruling, issued by US District Judge Brian Murphy in Boston, marks the latest legal setback for the US Department of Homeland Security’s efforts to terminate the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation for 13 countries in furtherance of Trump’s hardline immigration agenda.

TPS, under federal law, is available to people whose home countries have experienced natural disasters, armed conflicts or other extraordinary events. It provides eligible migrants with work authorisation and temporary protection from deportation.

Murphy, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, said the termination of TPS for Ethiopia was unsurprising in light of an executive order Trump signed upon returning to office in January 2025, directing the Department of Homeland Security to ensure such designations were “appropriately limited in scope”.

The judge said that directive “signals that the outcome of designation, extension and termination decisions will be preordained, rather than based on a meaningful review of in-country conditions”.

He concluded that the Department of Homeland Security disregarded the statutory procedures enacted by Congress governing TPS and provided a “pretextual” rationale for ending protections granted to people from Ethiopia, where “armed conflict and natural disasters continue to create dangerous conditions”.

“Fundamental to this case — and indeed to our constitutional system — is the principle that the will of the President does not supersede that of Congress,” Murphy wrote. “Presidential whims do not and cannot supplant agencies’ statutory obligations.”

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson described the ruling as “just the latest example of judicial activists trying to prevent President Trump from restoring integrity to America’s legal immigration system”.

Murphy issued the decision as the US Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments on April 29 on whether the administration can revoke similar protections for more than 350,000 Haitians and about 6,100 Syrians living in the US.

The Biden administration first granted Ethiopians already in the United States TPS in 2022, citing the need to protect the African nation’s citizens from armed conflict and humanitarian suffering. The status was extended again in April 2024.

The Department of Homeland Security, under former Secretary Kristi Noem, announced in December that it would end TPS for Ethiopia, arguing that conditions in the African nation no longer posed a serious threat to those returning safely.

The department has repeatedly said under Trump that TPS was “never meant to be a ticket to permanent residency”.

Three Ethiopian nationals and the group African Communities Together filed a lawsuit, arguing that the administration ignored persistent dangerous conditions in Ethiopia, where armed conflict continues in multiple regions.

The plaintiffs said the administration’s stated rationale was a pretext and not its true motivation for ending TPS, which they argued was based on unconstitutional animus against non-white immigrants. Ethiopia’s population is predominantly Black.

Murphy had earlier issued a temporary order on January 30 preventing the protections granted to Ethiopians from ending on February 13 as scheduled, allowing time to hear the case.