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Appeals Court Allows Trump Admin to Terminate Ethiopia's Protected Status

The case now heads back to the lower court that initially blocked the termination.

Published: 7/29/2026, 10:51:48 PM EDT

Appeals Court Allows Trump Admin to Terminate Ethiopia's Protected Status — The U.S. Department of Homeland Security in Washington on Feb. 17, 2026. (Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times)

A federal appeals court overturned on Wednesday a lower court’s order that had blocked the Trump administration’s termination of temporary protected status (TPS) for Ethiopians.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit’s decision comes less than a week after district Judge Brian Murphy granted an administrative stay, keeping in place deportation safeguards for thousands of Ethiopians living in the United States.

“The government’s request for summary reversal is allowed. … The matter is remanded for further proceedings in light of and consistent with [Mullin v. Doe],” judges on the federal appeals court said, referring to a Supreme Court decision last month.

The justices ruled in a 6–3 decision on June 25 that the federal government can end TPS designations for Haiti and Syria, which were similar cases to the one involving Ethiopia.

According to the high court’s ruling, justices also said federal law prohibited judicial review of specific legal arguments against the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) determinations on protected status.

Although the federal appeals court’s Wednesday ruling was a victory for the Trump administration, DHS special counsel James Percival indicated he was not optimistic about the issue being remanded to the lower court that had blocked Ethiopia’s TPS termination.

“A great win to be sure. But remember, the district judge already indicated that [he] would enter a new order postponing the termination on remand. That is the absurdity we are facing,” Percival wrote in a post on X.

After Murphy granted the stay regarding Ethiopia’s TPS, he did not indicate how long it would last, but said it would allow time for the court to fully consider merits of the case that cannot be comprehensively evaluated in haste.

“During the period of the stay of the Termination, the Termination shall be null, void, and of no legal effect,” Murphy wrote in his July 24 decision.

Following Murphy’s ruling, Percival wrote in a scathing post on X: “These district judges are engaged in mutiny against the Supreme Court. It must stop!” he said.

Ethiopia’s TPS designation was granted on Dec. 12, 2022, by then-DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas due to armed conflict and extraordinary conditions within the country.

Exactly three years later, then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem terminated protected status for Ethiopians living in the United States. This came after a review of the country’s conditions that found it no longer met the requirements warranting a continued TPS status.

“Temporary Protected Status designations are time-limited and were never meant to be a ticket to permanent residency,” a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesperson said on Dec. 12. “Conditions in Ethiopia no longer pose a serious threat to the personal safety of returning Ethiopian nationals. … Secretary Noem is terminating this designation to restore integrity in our immigration system.”

The Trump administration has strived to terminate TPS designations for several countries. While some efforts have been met with legal challenges, others have been successful, such as the Supreme Court decision allowing the end of Haiti’s and Syria’s protected statuses.

Deportation protections for hundreds of thousands of Haitians and Syrians in the United States expired on July 27. TPS designations for those two countries had remained in place, cumulatively, for decades.

From The Epoch Times