TPS Ends for 1.3M Immigrants as Court Backs Trump Admin

For immigration and administrative-law practitioners, the August 18 order by U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy is more than one country's TPS designation: it operationalizes a 6-3 Supreme Court ruling that closes the courthouse door on procedural challenges to DHS terminations. Justice Samuel Alito's majority held the TPS statute's judicial-review bar 'is clear, and its plain meaning is very broad,' leaving litigants to pivot from statutory theories to constitutional or individual-relief claims. The practical consequence is a 13-country, roughly 1.3 million-person policy shift that employers, compliance platforms, and immigration counsel must now operationalize.

On August 18, 2026, U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy in Boston lifted a temporary hold that had blocked the Department of Homeland Security from terminating Temporary Protected Status for Ethiopian nationals, clearing the final judicial obstacle in an immigration policy fight that has been building for years. The order is the practical culmination of a June 2026 Supreme Court decision in which a 6-3 majority held that federal courts cannot review whether DHS followed required procedures when terminating TPS designations. For Ethiopian nationals living and working legally in the United States under TPS, the ruling begins a countdown toward loss of work authorization and exposure to deportation.

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District Judge Brian Murphy is more than one country's TPS designation: it operationalizes a 6-3 Supreme Court ruling that closes the courthouse door on procedural challenges to DHS terminations.

The TPS program, created by Congress in 1990, allows foreign nationals to remain in the United States when their home countries face armed conflict, natural disasters, or other humanitarian crises. It confers work authorization and protection from deportation, and its designations can be renewed indefinitely, a feature the administration has criticized. DHS officials argued that the 'T' in TPS stands for temporary, yet many designations became 'de facto amnesty.' Last year, DHS concluded that conditions in Ethiopia had improved sufficiently to no longer warrant the protection, and the termination is part of a broader effort spanning 13 countries and nearly 1.3 million immigrants.

The legal architecture changed in June 2026, when the Supreme Court resolved cases involving Haiti and Syria in the administration's favor. Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority that the TPS statute's language prohibiting judicial review 'is clear, and its plain meaning is very broad.' That holding strips federal courts of authority to police DHS's procedural compliance, a significant narrowing of administrative-law review that removes the main lever plaintiffs had used to slow TPS terminations. Although the June cases formally addressed Haiti and Syria, the Boston order demonstrates how quickly the precedent cascades to every other designation, including Ethiopia.

For immigration and administrative-law practitioners, the Boston ruling signals that statutory procedural challenges are now effectively closed, and that future litigation must pivot to constitutional theories, individual asylum or other relief claims, or political pressure on Congress. Employers and HR compliance teams face a different problem: TPS beneficiaries with valid Employment Authorization Documents will see those documents lapse on a schedule set by DHS, triggering I-9 re-verification obligations, E-Verify flags, and workforce continuity risks in industries with concentrated TPS labor. The multi-country unwind creates demand for tools that track designation expiry dates, automate work-authorization re-verification, and flag employees whose status is changing.