A Massachusetts-based federal judge on Friday lifted her stay in a case brought by Somali holders of temporary protected status (TPS), clearing the way for the Trump administration to begin deporting them.
The ruling from U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs lifts an administrative stay she issued after the Supreme Court decided in a related case that the judiciary had no power to review the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) termination of TPS for Haiti and Syria.
Burroughs wrote that though the Somali plaintiffs had made a compelling case, the high court ruling meant she was “bound … to view things through the Mullin prism,” citing the court case bearing Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin’s name that ended TPS for the two countries at issue before the Supreme Court.
“Plaintiffs have made a convincing showing that they will suffer irreparable harm if the injunction is withheld … and the balance of hardships and the public interest also favor Plaintiffs, given that the government has made no showing that maintaining TPS status for the duration of this litigation would impose an undue burden,” she wrote.
Somalia was first designated for TPS in 1991, a status given when the government determines it is too dangerous to deport migrants to their home country because of national disaster or civil unrest. Somalia was last redesignated by the Biden administration, noting widespread and ongoing armed conflict.
The ruling highlights the difficulty for citizens of the remaining TPS countries to challenge the termination of their designation.
Burroughs reviewed a series of arguments made by plaintiffs that were largely unwound by the Mullin decision, which limited the extent disparaging remarks made by Trump administration staff — comments plaintiffs have argued showed racial animus — could be considered.
“Though Plaintiffs lay out a strong case for why the at-issue statements were racist … after Mullin, which included a constitutional race-discrimination claim, the Court cannot discern a path to concluding that Plaintiffs will succeed on the merits of this claim,” she wrote.
The plaintiffs had noted that President Trump had made a number of comments about Somali people specifically, including in the wake of a fraud investigation in Minnesota that was followed by widespread immigration raids. Approximately 700 TPS holders are impacted by Friday’s decision.
“This circumstantial evidence clearly shows that Somalia and its people are being targeted, but after Mullin, that is not sufficient to sustain a race-based equal protection claim,” the judge wrote.
