A federal judge lifted the last legal barrier preventing the Trump administration from terminating Temporary Protected Status for roughly 5,000 Ethiopians, a ruling that means every TPS cancellation the administration has pursued is now in effect.

U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy in Boston removed a temporary stay that had blocked the Department of Homeland Security from ending TPS for Ethiopian nationals, BBC News reported. The decision clears the way for DHS to begin deportation proceedings against Ethiopians who had been living in the United States under the temporary designation. Murphy dismissed several claims in the lawsuit brought by Ethiopian nationals but left one avenue open: plaintiffs may continue to litigate whether the cancellation was motivated by racial or national origin animus, which would violate the Constitution.

DHS wasted no time signaling what comes next. The department posted on X after the ruling:

"Those with terminated TPS are in our nation ILLEGALLY. They have two options: LEAVE IMMEDIATELY or be DEPORTED."

James Percival, DHS general counsel, echoed the message on the same platform: "All TPS terminations are in effect!" The statement carried weight beyond the Ethiopian case. With Murphy's ruling, every TPS termination the administration has pursued, across multiple countries, now stands without a court order blocking it.

Every legal hold on TPS terminations has now fallen

The Ethiopian ruling follows a June Supreme Court decision that ended similar protections for thousands from Haiti and Syria. DHS had already terminated TPS for several South and Central American countries, including Venezuela and Honduras. Fox News reported that the Boston ruling removed the final legal hold blocking any of the administration's TPS terminations from taking effect.

The administration has sought to cancel TPS protections for people from more than a dozen countries as part of a broader immigration enforcement push. The Washington Examiner reported that the Ethiopian revocation follows a similar move against Burma, and that DHS determined Ethiopia no longer meets the conditions that originally warranted the designation.

The pattern is clear: what began as a series of contested policy decisions, stalled by injunctions and challenged in courtrooms across the country, has now survived every legal test. Judges who attempted to block TPS terminations drew sharp responses from the administration. DHS general counsel Percival previously publicly named federal judges he said were blocking deportation flights, and at least one lawmaker filed an impeachment resolution against a judge who blocked the administration's TPS order for Somali nationals.

Biden granted TPS for Ethiopians in late 2022 amid civil war

Then-President Joe Biden's administration first designated Ethiopia for TPS at the end of 2022, following armed conflict in the country that included the Tigray war, a devastating two-year conflict that killed hundreds of thousands. At the time, the government estimated more than 20,000 displaced Ethiopians who had been living continuously in the United States since October 2022 would qualify for the designation.

That number has since dropped to roughly 5,000. The source article does not explain the decline.

The 2022 Pretoria Agreement formally ended the civil war. But both the Ethiopian federal government and Tigrayan leaders have accused each other of violating it. In recent weeks, fighting and drone strikes have been reported in parts of Tigray, the northern region where the war was centered. The Tigray People's Liberation Front recently moved to restore the prewar regional government and dismantle the interim administration appointed by Prime Minister Ahmed Abiy's government.

Ethiopia's two most-populous regional states, Oromia and Amhara, are also grappling with armed insurgencies. And the Ethiopian federal government has repeatedly accused Tigrayan leaders of cooperating with neighboring Eritrea and the Sudanese military, raising fears that a wider conflict could reignite.

DHS says conditions are safe, advocacy groups disagree

DHS first announced it was ending TPS for Ethiopians in December, under then-Secretary Kristi Noem. The department's rationale was straightforward: conditions in Ethiopia were safe. That assessment sits at the center of the dispute.

Diana Konaté, deputy executive director of policy and advocacy at the advocacy group African Communities Together, told Reuters:

"The crisis in Ethiopia is still ongoing, and this decision puts the lives of thousands of Ethiopians living in the US at severe risk."

The group described the ruling as creating "fresh dangers" for Ethiopian nationals. But the legal question is not whether Ethiopia faces instability, it is whether the executive branch has the authority to make that determination and act on it. On that question, the courts have now sided with the administration repeatedly.

Some federal judges have taken a different view in related cases. An Obama-appointed judge twice blocked the administration's TPS termination for Somali nationals, drawing accusations of defiance from DHS. That resistance prompted Rep. Andy Ogles to file an impeachment resolution against the judge.

Judge Murphy's ruling, by contrast, reflects a judiciary catching up with the Supreme Court's June precedent. The high court's decision on Haitian and Syrian TPS holders established that the administration possesses broad authority to terminate these designations. Murphy's order extends that logic to Ethiopian nationals.

One legal question remains open

Murphy did not shut the courthouse door entirely. The plaintiffs may still argue that the cancellation was motivated by racial or national origin animus, a constitutional claim that, if proven, could invalidate the termination on different grounds. That litigation continues.

Whether that claim gains traction remains to be seen. The administration's record of terminating TPS across multiple countries, spanning Africa, the Caribbean, South America, Central America, and Southeast Asia, may complicate any argument that one nationality was singled out.

TPS was designed as a temporary measure, a shield for foreign nationals already in the country when conditions back home made return dangerous. It was never intended as a permanent residency program. For years, successive administrations extended and re-extended TPS designations, turning a temporary tool into something that looked permanent for tens of thousands of people. The current administration has moved to end that pattern, and the courts have now cleared the path.

Temporary means temporary. The law says so, the Supreme Court agrees, and now so does every lower court that had been standing in the way.