Harry Reitman — January 20, 2026
President Donald Trump has spent weeks calling Somali immigrants “garbage” and saying they “come from hell.” Tuesday, his administration made good on those statements. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said on Tuesday that Somalia’s Temporary Protected Status is done. Somali nationals have until March 17, 2026. Around 2,400 people will lose the protection. Somalia got TPS back in 1991. It’s been renewed 27 times.
TPS lets foreign nationals stay here when they can’t go back home due to war, natural disasters, or other crises. President George H.W. Bush gave Somalia the status in 1991 after their civil war kicked off. A Congressional report from 2025 cited “insecurity and ongoing armed conflict.” The State Department warns against going to Somalia due to crime, terrorism, kidnapping and piracy.
But Noem says Somalia is safe now. “Country conditions in Somalia have improved to the point that it no longer meets the law’s requirement for Temporary Protected Status,” Noem said. Immigration attorneys disagreed. They said claiming Somalia is safe when there’s active military conflict doesn’t match up with safety standards or the legal requirements Congress set for TPS.
The timing matters. The decision comes while the administration has deployed thousands of federal immigration agents to Minneapolis, home to the largest Somali population in the US. Street protests have intensified since an ICE agent killed a US citizen demonstrating against federal presence. Minneapolis and state officials sued the Trump administration Monday, claiming the 2,000 immigration officers were creating a public safety threat and were dispatched as retaliation against Democratic leadership.
This TPS termination will almost certainly end up in court. Most attempts by the administration to end TPS designations have faced legal challenges. Previous lawsuits during Trump’s first term showed that DHS sometimes overlooked substantial evidence of danger in Haiti, El Salvador, and Sudan. Trump has pulled TPS for other countries too: Afghanistan, Venezuela, Haiti and South Sudan. David Wilson, a Minnesota immigration attorney, said some clients have been here since the late 1990s and are now looking at deportation. Courts could intervene. Otherwise, March 17 is the deadline.
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