The Department of Homeland Security said conditions in Somalia no longer justify temporary protections, requiring thousands of Somali nationals in the United States to leave by mid-March.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
The Trump administration is ending Temporary Protected Status for Somalia, a decision that will require several thousand Somali nationals currently living in the United States to leave the country by March 17, according to reporting by Fox News.
Somali nationals who have been residing in the U.S. under TPS will no longer be eligible for the program once the designation expires. “Temporary means temporary,” Kristi Noem, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, told Fox News Digital in a statement. “Country conditions in Somalia have improved to the point that it no longer meets the law’s requirement for Temporary Protected Status.”
Noem added that “allowing Somali nationals to remain temporarily in the United States is contrary to our national interests,” saying the administration is “putting Americans first.”
Sources at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services told Fox News Digital that 2,471 Somali nationals are currently living in the United States under TPS, with an additional 1,383 individuals having pending TPS applications. An estimated 600 TPS recipients reside in Minnesota.
Somalia was first granted Temporary Protected Status in 1991 following the outbreak of civil war in the country. The designation was most recently extended in September 2024 under President Joe Biden.
The decision to terminate TPS for Somalia comes as the Department of Homeland Security continues immigration enforcement operations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Minneapolis and other parts of Minnesota. Those operations follow investigations into a roughly $9 billion fraud scheme involving members of the Somali community in the state, according to federal authorities.
The move also follows a lawsuit filed by the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul against the Trump administration after what officials described as a historic federal immigration enforcement action carried out by ICE and DHS. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said at a press conference Monday that the state alleges unconstitutional targeting. “We allege that the obvious targeting of Minnesota for our diversity, for our democracy and our differences of opinion with the federal government is a violation of the Constitution and of federal law,” Ellison said, adding that “DHS agents have sown chaos and terror across the metropolitan area.”
Tensions escalated further last week during ICE operations in south Minneapolis when a woman, identified by DHS as Renee Nicole Good, was fatally shot by an immigration officer. According to Noem, Good “weaponized her vehicle” after blocking ICE agents and attempted to run over an officer, prompting the agent to fire multiple shots into her vehicle. Footage from the encounter shows an agent ordering Good to exit her car before shots were fired.
Following the incident, Jacob Frey told ICE to “get the f— out of Minneapolis” during a news conference, while Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz criticized DHS on social media, referring to Noem’s explanation of the shooting as part of a “propaganda machine.”
In the days after the shooting, agitators blocked off the street where the incident occurred using makeshift barricades, creating a restricted zone with limited visible local police presence. Despite the unrest, DHS said enforcement operations continued in Minneapolis, leading to additional clashes between protesters and immigration agents.
Federal officials have not indicated whether further TPS designations will be reevaluated, but DHS said the Somalia decision reflects its assessment that the program’s statutory requirements are no longer met.
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