The administration of President Donald Trump announced that it will end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Somali immigrants, in the latest move in its broad deportation agenda.
The measure affects hundreds of people who are a small subset of TPS recipients in the United States. It comes amid Trump’s crackdown on that immigration in Minneapolis, where many native Somalis live and where street protests have intensified since a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent killed a U.S. citizen who was protesting the presence of federal agents in the city.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that the affected Somalis must leave the United States by March 17, when the existing protections, last extended by former President Joe Biden, expire.
“Temporary status means temporary status,” said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and she added that the decision puts “Americans first.”
The Congressional Research Service said last spring that the Somali TPS population stood at 705, among nearly 1.3 million TPS immigrants. But in his second term, Trump has rolled back protections for people from several countries.
The Congress established the Temporary Protected Status program in 1990 to help foreign nationals fleeing unstable and threatening conditions in their home countries. It allows the executive branch to designate a country so that its citizens are eligible to enter the United States and receive legal status.
Somalia received designation for the first time during the presidency of George H.W. Bush amid a civil war in 1991. The status has been extended for decades, most recently by Biden in July 2024.
Noem insisted that the circumstances in Somalia “have improved to the point that the country no longer meets the statutory requirement for Temporary Protected Status.”
Located in the Horn of Africa, Somalia is one of the poorest nations in the world, and for decades it has been beset by chronic conflicts exacerbated by multiple natural disasters, including severe droughts.
In the 2025 Congressional report it notes that Somalis had received more than two dozen extensions due to the ongoing “insecurity and armed conflict that pose serious threats to the safety of the returnees.”
Trump has directed racist rhetoric at Somali immigrants and has accused those living in Minneapolis of massively defrauding federal programs.
This story was translated from English by an AP editor with the help of a generative artificial intelligence tool.
In December, the president said he did not want Somalis in the United States, claiming that “they come from hell” and “contribute nothing.” He did not distinguish between citizens and non-citizens nor offer any opinion on immigration status. He has had particularly harsh words for Representative Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat who came to the United States from Somalia as a child. The president has repeatedly suggested she should be deported, despite being a U.S. citizen, and in a tirade last fall, he called her “trash.”
Omar, who has been an outspoken critic of ICE deployments in Minneapolis, has described Trump’s obsession with her and Somali Americans as “creepy and unhealthy.”
