Federal Judge Clears Way for Trump Administration to Revoke Deportation Protections for Ethiopians
On August 18, 2026, US District Judge Brian Murphy ruled that the Trump administration may revoke Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Ethiopians, removing the last court order that had blocked the government from ending the protection on a country-by-country basis. TPS is a program that allows people from countries experiencing war, natural disasters, or other crises to live and work in the United States without fear of deportation. The decision affects more than 5,000 Ethiopians who had been shielded under the program, according to Al Jazeera.
The ruling clears the final judicial obstacle to ending TPS for individual countries. James Percival, General Counsel at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), confirmed the development on social media, stating that Judge Murphy had lifted the stay (a court order that pauses an action while a case is pending) on Ethiopia's TPS termination.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin reacted to the ruling by stating that terminated TPS holders are in the United States illegally and must leave immediately or face swift deportation, Al Jazeera reported.
The legal battle over Ethiopia's TPS designation has passed through several stages. DHS first announced on December 12, 2025 that it would terminate TPS for Ethiopia, arguing that conditions in the country no longer warranted the protection. Ethiopians had been granted TPS in 2022 under President Joe Biden, citing violent conflict and humanitarian conditions. A lawsuit challenging the termination argued that DHS unlawfully ended the designation with only 60 days' notice, Reuters reported.
On January 30, 2026, a federal judge temporarily blocked the termination. On April 8, 2026, a judge ruled that the Trump administration could not revoke the legal status of the approximately 5,000 Ethiopians, finding that DHS had disregarded the law, Reuters reported. Murphy's August 18 ruling reverses that trajectory.
The Ethiopia case is one thread in a broader administration effort to dismantle TPS designations across multiple nationalities. The Trump administration has sought to terminate TPS protections for at least 13 countries, including Venezuela, Nicaragua, South Sudan, and Somalia. Roughly 1.29 million people across 17 countries were living in the United States under TPS as of March 2026, Al Jazeera reported. The Pew Research Center estimated that the revocations would affect at least one million people in the program as of 2026.
The judicial landscape has shifted in the administration's favor in recent months. In June 2026, the US Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to limit courts' ability to review DHS efforts to terminate TPS protections, a decision centered on recipients from Syria and Haiti. On August 7, 2026, federal judges allowed the administration to end deportation protections for migrants from South Sudan, rejecting arguments that only the attorney general possesses the authority to terminate TPS, Reuters reported.
The Ethiopia ruling carries a notable internal tension. DHS terminated TPS on the grounds that conditions in Ethiopia no longer warranted the designation. Yet the US State Department currently lists Ethiopia under a Level 3 travel advisory, urging citizens not to travel there due to unrest, crime, kidnapping, terrorism, and landmines. That advisory undercuts the factual premise of the termination, though the legal standard for TPS revocation does not require alignment with travel advisory levels.
The broader context here is that the Supreme Court's June decision curtailing judicial review of TPS terminations has substantially narrowed the legal avenues available to beneficiaries challenging revocation. Murphy's August 18 ruling operates within that constrained framework. With the Ethiopia stay lifted and the South Sudan protections already allowed to expire, the remaining TPS designations under challenge, including those for Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Somalia, face a judicial environment markedly less receptive to procedural challenges than the one that existed a year ago.
For the more than 5,000 Ethiopians now losing protected status, the immediate question is enforcement speed. Secretary Mullin's language, directing immediate departure or swift deportation, signals that DHS intends to move without the phased wind-down periods that have typically accompanied prior TPS terminations. Whether the agency can carry out removals at that pace, given the interplay between immigration courts, detention capacity, and diplomatic removal agreements with Ethiopia, remains a practical constraint separate from the legal authority Murphy's ruling has now cleared.
