Court Hands Trump Major Immigration Win, Clearing Way to End TPS for Ethiopian and South Sudanese Migrants
President Donald Trump has secured a significant immigration victory after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit reversed orders that had delayed the termination of Temporary Protected Status for nationals of Ethiopia and South Sudan.
We are looking at two closely connected judgments that strengthen the administration’s authority over TPS designations and sharply restrict the ability of federal judges to suspend those decisions. The First Circuit concluded that the district court orders could not survive the Supreme Court’s June 2026 decision in Mullin v. Doe, which held that federal law bars judicial review of nonconstitutional challenges to TPS termination decisions.
The appellate court did not decide whether every possible challenge brought by Ethiopian and South Sudanese TPS recipients must be dismissed. Instead, it found that the legal grounds supporting the postponement orders were precisely the type of nonconstitutional claims that the Supreme Court had declared unreviewable.
That distinction explains both the importance and the limits of this Trump immigration win. The administration has removed the immediate district court barriers to its TPS terminations, but the lawsuits may continue if the plaintiffs present properly pleaded constitutional claims that remain within federal court jurisdiction.
What the First Circuit Actually Ruled in the TPS Cases
The First Circuit issued separate judgments on July 29, 2026, in cases involving Ethiopia and South Sudan. Both decisions were brief, nearly identical, and based directly on the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the TPS statute.
In the South Sudan case, the court reversed an order postponing the termination of TPS because nonconstitutional claims provided the only basis for the relief under review. The appellate court granted the government’s request for summary reversal, denied its separate stay request as moot, and returned the case to the district court for further proceedings consistent with Mullin v. Doe.
The court reached the same result in the Ethiopia case. It reversed the postponement order, ruled that the Supreme Court’s decision controlled the dispute and directed that the appellate mandate issue immediately.
Judges Julie Rikelman, Seth Aframe and Joshua Dunlap formed the three-judge panel in both appeals. Their decisions did not offer an independent evaluation of conditions in Ethiopia or South Sudan. The judgments focused on the narrower jurisdictional question of whether the district courts could postpone TPS terminations on statutory or administrative law grounds.
This is crucial because the appeals court did not announce that conditions in either African country were safe. It ruled that Congress had restricted the courts’ power to review the Homeland Security secretary’s TPS decisions through ordinary nonconstitutional challenges.
How the Supreme Court Changed the TPS Legal Landscape
The turning point came on June 25, 2026, when the Supreme Court decided Mullin v. Doe. The consolidated dispute concerned the Trump administration’s termination of TPS designations for Syria and Haiti.
The Supreme Court held that Section 1254a(b)(5)(A) of federal immigration law bars judicial review of nonconstitutional claims challenging the designation, extension, or termination of TPS for a foreign country. The court interpreted the statute broadly enough to cover both a final TPS decision and alleged procedural errors leading to that decision.
That interpretation closed a route that immigration advocates had repeatedly used to challenge TPS terminations. Plaintiffs could no longer avoid the review bar simply by arguing that the Department of Homeland Security failed to follow the Administrative Procedure Act, overlooked relevant information, consulted the wrong agencies, or inadequately explained its decision.
The Supreme Court reasoned that Congress prohibited review of any determination relating to TPS designation decisions. In the majority’s view, that language covered subsidiary procedural decisions as well as the secretary’s ultimate conclusion.
We therefore see a major transfer of practical authority toward the executive branch. Unless plaintiffs can identify a viable constitutional violation, courts have little room to reconsider how the Homeland Security secretary evaluated foreign conditions or conducted the administrative process.
Why the District Court Protections Could Not Remain in Place
The Ethiopia and South Sudan lawsuits were brought by African Communities Together and individual TPS recipients. The plaintiffs challenged the termination decisions under the Administrative Procedure Act and alleged that the government failed to properly evaluate country conditions.
The South Sudan litigation originally resulted in a December 2025 administrative stay. The district court said allowing the termination to take effect before full judicial review could strip beneficiaries of lawful protection, expose them to removal, and create harmful gaps in their immigration status.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts also stayed Ethiopia’s termination. USCIS subsequently treated qualifying Ethiopian employment authorization documents as temporarily extended under the court order while the litigation remained active.
Those protections became legally vulnerable after the Supreme Court issued Mullin. The First Circuit found that the orders before it rested only on nonconstitutional claims, meaning the district courts lacked authority to continue postponing the TPS terminations on those grounds.
The appellate court did not prohibit the district judges from allowing amended complaints. Instead, it held that the terminations could not remain blocked merely because plaintiffs hoped to develop constitutional claims later.
In practical terms, plaintiffs must now do more than allege that DHS made a poor decision, ignored humanitarian evidence or violated administrative procedures. They must identify a constitutional violation, support it with specific factual allegations and satisfy the demanding standards for obtaining preliminary relief.
What Temporary Protected Status Provides
Congress created Temporary Protected Status in 1990 as a humanitarian mechanism for eligible nationals of countries affected by armed conflict, environmental disaster, or extraordinary temporary conditions.
TPS generally protects eligible beneficiaries from removal while the designation remains active and allows them to obtain employment authorization. It does not automatically provide lawful permanent residence, citizenship, or a separate permanent immigration pathway.
The Secretary of Homeland Security must periodically review each designated country. The Secretary may extend the designation when the statutory conditions continue or terminate it after determining that the country no longer qualifies.
That structure creates the tension now driving the litigation. TPS recipients may have lived, worked, and raised families in the United States for years, while the government continues to describe their protection as legally temporary and dependent on conditions in their countries of nationality.
When a designation ends, the consequences vary according to each person’s underlying immigration history. Some beneficiaries may possess another lawful status, a pending asylum case, a family-based petition, or a separate claim for protection. Others may return to the immigration position they held before receiving TPS and could become subject to removal proceedings.
We should therefore avoid treating the First Circuit decisions as individualized deportation orders. They concern the validity of countrywide TPS termination blocks, not final removal determinations for every Ethiopian or South Sudanese beneficiary.
