Temporary Protected Status has become one of the central legal battlegrounds in the federal government’s broader immigration crackdown. For Ethiopian nationals in the United States, that fight narrowed after the Department of Homeland Security moved to end the protection and a Biden-appointed judge in Massachusetts said the administration had not fully followed the statutory process, even as the agency kept pressing its position.
DHS moved to end Ethiopia’s TPS protections for about 5,000 people
The specific action in this case was DHS’s December 2025 termination of Temporary Protected Status for Ethiopia, a move affecting about 5,000 Ethiopian nationals in the United States, according to the Associated Press and federal court reporting. TPS had allowed eligible Ethiopians to remain in the country temporarily and work lawfully after the Biden administration first designated Ethiopia for the program in 2022 because of armed conflict and humanitarian conditions, according to AP.
DHS said conditions in Ethiopia had improved and no longer justified the designation, according to AP’s reporting on the termination. A Federal Register notice scheduled for publication in mid-December 2025 said the termination would take effect 60 days after publication, ending the designation after the required transition period under federal law. That notice also said beneficiaries would lose TPS automatically at the end of that period unless another legal action intervened, according to the notice.
The legal challenge that followed landed before U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy in Massachusetts. AP reported in April 2026 that Murphy, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, temporarily blocked the administration’s effort to end the program, finding that Congress set procedures DHS had to follow and that presidential will did not override the statute.
For Ethiopian communities across the United States, the practical effect was uncertainty over whether work authorization and protection from removal would continue. AP reported that DHS later stated Ethiopians whose TPS had been terminated could be arrested and deported after January 13, 2026, underscoring how directly the agency was framing the consequences of the policy change.
What remains less clear publicly is the full state-by-state footprint of those affected residents. DHS has not released a comprehensive public list showing where all Ethiopian TPS holders live, and court reporting reviewed here does not provide a state-level breakdown. That means the precise impact on individual cities, employers, school systems, or community organizations has not been fully quantified in public records.
Massachusetts became the focal point because that is where the federal case was heard, not because the effect was limited to one state. The litigation carried national stakes, since TPS is a federal immigration protection and any final ruling on the legality of the termination would shape what Ethiopian beneficiaries around the country could expect from immigration enforcement.
The core disagreement was not only about conditions in Ethiopia, but about whether DHS complied with the TPS statute when it ended the designation. AP reported that Judge Murphy said the department disregarded procedures enacted by Congress, while DHS maintained that Ethiopia no longer met the legal conditions for TPS and that extending the program was no longer warranted.
That conflict fits into a broader push by the Trump administration to terminate TPS designations for multiple nationalities. AP reported that DHS had moved to end TPS for people from numerous countries after President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025, making the Ethiopia case part of a larger legal and political campaign over how much discretion the executive branch has to unwind humanitarian protections.
For residents directly affected, the practical takeaway remains tied to federal orders and DHS notices, not rhetoric. Ethiopians covered by the terminated designation faced the prospect of losing work authorization and protection from removal unless a court order preserved those benefits. As of the latest reporting cited here, the larger legal fight over TPS authority was still unfolding in multiple cases, leaving final long-term status dependent on further court action and federal implementation.