The case has been closely watched because it follows a major Supreme Court decision from June involving TPS protections for migrants from Haiti and Syria. In that case, the justices ruled in favor of the administration, significantly restricting the ability of lower federal courts to block the executive branch when DHS moves to terminate a country’s TPS designation.
That Supreme Court ruling was handed down by the court’s 6-3 conservative majority and has since played a significant role in similar immigration cases working their way through federal courts.
James Percival, general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security, quickly highlighted Tuesday’s development on social media.
“All TPS terminations are in effect!” he wrote.
Temporary Protected Status is a federal immigration program designed to provide temporary protection to qualifying nationals of countries experiencing extraordinary circumstances. Those circumstances can include armed conflict, natural disasters or other conditions that make a temporary return unsafe. Individuals granted TPS can also receive authorization to work legally in the United States.
Ethiopian nationals became eligible for the program under the Biden administration in 2022. The designation was based on armed conflict and other serious humanitarian conditions affecting Ethiopia at the time.
The Trump administration later concluded that the circumstances supporting the designation no longer justified maintaining the broad protection. DHS subsequently moved to terminate the program, setting off a legal battle that eventually reached Murphy’s courtroom.
Murphy initially sided with the challengers in April, temporarily preventing the administration from ending the protections. He concluded at the time that DHS had not adequately complied with the legal requirements governing the termination process and questioned the agency’s stated rationale.
The judge described the explanation offered by the government as “pretextual,” adding another hurdle for DHS as it attempted to proceed with the termination.
But the legal landscape changed following the Supreme Court’s June ruling.
Murphy subsequently kept his injunction in place temporarily while examining additional arguments presented by the plaintiffs. Among those claims was a fundamental challenge to DHS’s authority to terminate TPS designations in the first place.
The plaintiffs pointed to the 1990 law establishing TPS and argued that Congress had assigned authority over the program to the attorney general rather than DHS. They further argued that DHS could not exercise powers that Congress had originally given to the attorney general because the department itself did not exist when the law was enacted.
DHS was created in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks as part of a major restructuring of the federal government’s national security and immigration functions.
However, that argument has faced mounting opposition in other federal courts.
Judges considering challenges involving TPS designations for nationals from South Sudan, Myanmar and Somalia have rejected similar claims concerning DHS authority. Murphy ultimately reached the same conclusion Tuesday.
By dismissing that argument, along with the plaintiffs’ other challenges to the termination, Murphy eliminated the last remaining judicial roadblock preventing the administration from proceeding with its decision regarding Ethiopian TPS.
The ruling, however, does not bring the entire lawsuit to an immediate end.
Murphy left open another constitutional challenge brought by the plaintiffs. That claim alleges that the administration’s decision was influenced by racial or national-origin considerations, which the plaintiffs argue would violate the Fifth Amendment.
The challengers maintain that dangerous conditions continue to exist in Ethiopia and argue that the administration’s immigration policies have disproportionately affected migrants from non-European and non-white countries.
The Trump administration has rejected those allegations and has consistently argued that TPS was created as a temporary humanitarian measure—not as a mechanism for providing permanent immigration status.
That distinction remains central to the administration’s broader immigration strategy.
For Trump and his DHS officials, Tuesday’s decision represents a significant legal win. It allows the administration to continue moving forward with the termination of protections that have permitted thousands of Ethiopian nationals to remain legally in the United States and obtain employment authorization.
The decision also illustrates the broader impact of the Supreme Court’s June ruling. With lower courts facing greater limits when reviewing executive decisions concerning TPS, the administration now has considerably more room to implement its immigration policies without facing prolonged nationwide judicial blocks.
For the thousands of Ethiopians affected, however, the ruling could eventually mean the loss of their temporary protections and the need to pursue another legal immigration status or make arrangements to leave the United States.
The remaining constitutional challenge means the controversy is not necessarily over. But for now, the administration has cleared another major courtroom obstacle as Trump continues his push to reshape the nation’s immigration system.
