TPS Dealt New Legal Blows: Full List of Communities Facing Deportation

Two federal judges officially ended Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for two countries Friday, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court‘s decision favoring the Trump administration in June, opening up thousands more immigrants to potential deportation.

The rulings on South Sudan and Burma’s statuses continue a trend of lower court judges undoing the blocks they had placed on the Department of Homeland Security‘s (DHS) efforts to end TPS for hundreds of thousands of immigrants—many of whom have been in the U.S. for over a decade.

Because of the Supreme Court’s ruling on TPS for Haiti and Syria, in which the justices said DHS did have the authority to end protections, other similar cases covering different nationalities were also expected to fall in line.

“The Trump administration has relentlessly pursued every avenue to strip TPS holders of their lawful status with the end goal of subjecting long-term members of our communities to detention and deportation,” Lupe Aguirre, deputy director of U.S. litigation at the International Refugee Assistance Project, told Newsweek on Friday.

“The Supreme Court ruling on TPS has resulted in thousands of people losing their protections with each decision from lower courts severely constrained from intervening in the Trump administration’s cruel de-documentation campaign. We are continuing the legal fight, but TPS holders need immediate and permanent protections. Congress must act now to protect them.”

DHS General Counsel James Percival has been celebrating the court decisions on X, taking aim at the judges who have yet to rule on the cases, posting Friday, “Every day these ‘administrative stays’ are in effect is a day the American people are denied what they voted for.

“Under the previous administration Temporary Protected Status was abused to allow violent terrorists, criminals, and national security threats into our nation,” a DHS spokesperson told Newsweek Firday. “TPS was never designed to be permanent. With the renewed peace in South Sudan, their demonstrated commitment to ensuring the safe reintegration of returning nationals, and improved diplomatic relations, now is the right time to conclude what was always intended to be a temporary designation.”

What the Judges Said About Burma, South Sudan TPS

Federal judges in Illinois and Massachusetts largely rejected new efforts to block the Trump administration’s termination of TPS for Burma and South Sudan, finding that plaintiffs were unlikely to succeed on newly advanced legal theories.

In the South Sudan case, Patti B. Saris of the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts denied a request to amend the lawsuit and renew a bid to postpone the TPS termination.

The plaintiffs argued that former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem lacked authority to end TPS and that the government violated due process protections. Saris rejected both claims, concluding that the Homeland Security secretary has long been understood to hold TPS authority and that the plaintiffs’ due process arguments were unlikely to succeed.

Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, President and CEO of Global Refuge, told Newsweek Friday, “To be clear about this ruling, the court did not find that South Sudan is safe to return to. It found that after the Supreme Court’s decision, federal judges have been stripped of the power to even ask if the country is safe.”

O’Mara Vignarajah said that the reality was that South Sudan was on the brink of a return to “all-out-civil war.”

“With only several hundred South Sudanese holding TPS in the U.S. right now, this isn’t a policy forced by scale or strain on our system,” she said. “To the contrary, this is the administration’s deliberate choice to send a small group of vulnerable individuals and families back into a country where civilians are bearing the brunt of intensifying violence and displacement.”

In the Burma case, Matthew F. Kennelly of the Northern District of Illinois reached a similar conclusion on the plaintiffs’ new claims, dismissing them and denying a renewed request to delay the TPS termination. Kennelly likewise found that Congress transferred TPS authority to DHS through the Homeland Security Act and said the due process claims amounted to an attempt to repackage arguments that are no longer viable after the Supreme Court’s recent TPS decision.

The Illinois ruling, however, left one avenue of challenge alive. Kennelly declined to dismiss a claim alleging racial discrimination in the administration’s handling of TPS terminations, finding the plaintiffs had plausibly alleged an equal protection violation at this stage. The judge left that question open for higher courts to weigh in before the case proceeds further.

How quickly U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents move to detain those who have lost status remains to be seen, after current and former officials at the agency told Newsweek Thursday that agents had been told to avoid arresting immigrants covered by the class action lawsuits for now.

Which Other TPS Countries Have Lost Status?

The rulings come as the Trump administration continues its broader effort to unwind TPS protections for multiple countries. The Supreme Court’s June decision in Mullin v. Doe involved the administration’s termination of TPS for Haiti and Syria and has become the key precedent shaping lower court decisions around the country.

Judges in both the Burma and South Sudan cases noted that the Supreme Court held that the TPS statute largely bars judicial review of nonconstitutional challenges to TPS termination decisions. That ruling has significantly narrowed the legal options available to advocates seeking to block the end of protections for affected groups.

The latest decisions, therefore, add Burma and South Sudan to the growing list of TPS designations whose terminations have survived major legal challenges, alongside Haiti and Syria.

The other countries that have seen TPS terminated are: Yemen, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Nepal, Cameroon, Honduras and Venezuela.

Somalia and Ethiopia still have pending lower court cases.

Critics of the move to end TPS have said that in many of the countries affected, conditions have not improved as the government has claimed. This, they say, means immigrants face dangerous or difficult conditions should they return to their home countries.

What Happens Next?

While the protections under TPS appear to be over, and DHS is urging those covered to leave the U.S., legal representatives are still exploring other options, and some immigrants may be eligible for other legal statuses.

The future of the TPS program altogether appears uncertain, particularly under the second Trump administration, although DHS has temporarily extended Lebanon’s status through November due to ongoing unrest there.

Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Edward T. Cummins.