WASHINGTON — Two U.S. federal judges have cleared the way for President Donald Trump’s administration to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for migrants from South Sudan and Myanmar, allowing the government to proceed with terminating deportation protections and work authorization for thousands of people.
The rulings on Friday followed a June decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that sharply limited lower courts’ ability to block the Department of Homeland Security from ending TPS designations. The program provides temporary protection from deportation and permission to work to eligible migrants whose home countries face armed conflict, natural disasters or other extraordinary conditions.
U.S. District Judge Patti Saris in Boston rejected an argument from immigrant-rights lawyers that DHS lacked authority to terminate TPS for South Sudan. Hours later, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly in Chicago reached a similar conclusion in a case involving Myanmar, also known as Burma.
The judges had previously issued orders preventing the administration from ending the protections while the legal challenges proceeded. After the Supreme Court ruling, lawyers representing migrants sought to keep the protections in place on different legal grounds, arguing that the termination authority belonged to the attorney general rather than DHS.
Saris rejected that argument, saying it would raise questions about DHS's longstanding authority to extend TPS as well as terminate it. Kennelly reached the same conclusion in the Myanmar case, according to the rulings reported by Reuters.
DHS moved in November to terminate TPS for South Sudan, which was first designated for the program in 2011, and for Myanmar, which has faced political turmoil since a military coup in 2021. The terminations affect about 232 South Sudanese nationals and about 4,000 people from Myanmar, according to Reuters.
The Supreme Court's June ruling, decided 6-3, allowed the administration to proceed with similar TPS terminations for Haitian and Syrian nationals and curtailed judicial review of DHS decisions to end the designations. The decision has affected a broader series of challenges to the administration's efforts to terminate TPS for migrants from numerous countries.
James Percival, DHS general counsel, said the latest rulings meant that court orders blocking the administration's TPS terminations remained in place only for Ethiopia and Somalia. He urged judges handling other TPS litigation to rule in favor of the government.
The latest rulings allow DHS to move forward with the South Sudan and Myanmar terminations, while litigation concerning the remaining blocked designations continues.
