By Gao Yun
The U.S. government announced on Tuesday, January 13, that it will terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Somali nationals, ending a program that has shielded roughly 1,100 Somalis in the United States from deportation and allowed them to work legally.
According to Reuters, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem confirmed the decision, stating that conditions in Somalia have improved, despite the continued fighting between Somali security forces and the Islamist militant group al-Shabaab.
In a written statement, Noem said that conditions in Somalia no longer meet the legal threshold required to justify TPS protections. She added that allowing Somali nationals to remain temporarily in the United States no longer aligns with U.S. national interests, emphasizing that the administration is prioritizing Americans.
The White House said in a post on the social media platform X that President Donald Trump had approved the termination of TPS for Somali nationals. Under the decision, current TPS holders will be required to leave the United States by March 17 unless they secure another form of legal status.
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The move comes amid intensified scrutiny of Somali immigrant communities in the United States, particularly following the “Feeding Our Future” case in Minnesota—one of the largest fraud schemes linked to pandemic-era relief programs. Since 2022, 78 individuals associated with the nonprofit organization have been charged, and dozens have been convicted. Most of those charged were of Somali descent.
According to U.S. Census data, an estimated 76,000 Somali immigrants live in Minnesota, home to the largest Somali diaspora community in the country.
Against the backdrop of fraud allegations involving daycare centers connected to Somali immigrants, the federal government has deployed more than 2,000 additional immigration enforcement officers to Minnesota to assist with investigations and enforcement operations.
Temporary Protected Status is a federal immigration designation that allows foreign nationals already present in the United States to remain temporarily and obtain work authorization when armed conflict, natural disasters, or other extraordinary conditions make safe return to their home countries impossible. The Trump administration has said it intends to narrow the scope of the program, arguing that TPS determinations should explicitly reflect U.S. national interests rather than serve as open-ended humanitarian relief.
In December, a U.S. federal judge temporarily blocked the administration from ending TPS protections for certain immigrants from Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua, citing procedural concerns and questions about whether the decision-making process complied with the law.
A notice published Tuesday in the Federal Register stated that approximately 1,100 Somali nationals currently hold TPS, while an additional 1,400 applications remain pending.
The notice asserted that security conditions in Somalia have improved compared with previous years, and suggested that returnees could resettle in relatively safer areas, including the northern Somaliland region, which has functioned with a high degree of autonomy for decades.
The most recent TPS extension for Somalia was issued in 2024 under former President Joe Biden. That extension cited ongoing al-Shabaab attacks and persistent instability, concluding that humanitarian protections for Somalis in the United States remained necessary at the time.
