A federal judge in Massachusetts did something on January 30, 2026, that the Trump administration did not expect or at least did not agree with. The Department of Homeland Security had planned for Temporary Protected Status for Ethiopian nationals to end in a clean and legal way, but U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy stopped that from happening. The paper work had been put away. It was set for February 13, 2026. Then the order came through, letting about 26,700 Ethiopians who were living and working in the US stay for a little while longer.
The story of Ethiopia’s TPS designation has many layers, and to understand where it is now, you have to know how it all began. In December 2022, the Biden administration gave Ethiopians TPS. They did this because there was an ongoing armed conflict in the Tigray region, widespread violations of human rights, and a food crisis that put a lot of the country in real trouble. The protections kept qualified Ethiopians who were already in the U.S. from being deported while conditions at home stayed dangerous. They let them live and work legally. In the end, the designation was made permanent until December 2025.
When Trump took office, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem decided that Ethiopia no longer met the requirements for TPS. In December 2025, the official notice of termination was published in the Federal Register. The government gave a 60-day wind-down period. From a business point of view, it looked like a settled matter. It wasn’t. A non-profit advocacy group called African Communities Together sued in the District of Massachusetts, saying that DHS had not followed the steps Congress set up for ending TPS. Judge Murphy agreed with the challengers and stopped the firing.
The next thing that happened changed the law in ways that are still being felt. The Supreme Court made a decision 6-3 in Mullin v. Doe on June 25, 2026. This made it much harder for lower courts to use Administrative Procedure Act challenges to stop DHS decisions about TPS. The plaintiffs’ case was built around the APA. Right away, the Trump administration said that Murphy’s earlier injunction had been weakened by the ruling and should be lifted. That was a good legal point of view—the court that had been holding the line was now working within the limits that the Supreme Court had just made clear.
The case didn’t fall apart, though. The plaintiffs got back together and changed their complaint to focus on constitutional claims that the Supreme Court had left open. In response to these new arguments, Murphy issued a new administrative stay on July 25, 2026. This time, it kept TPS protections in place for Ethiopian nationals while the court decided if constitutional challenges could go forward. What the administration did was quick and harsh. Murphy was accused of “mutiny” against the Supreme Court by DHS General Counsel James Percival on social media. That’s the kind of language that shows this disagreement has become much more serious than a normal legal disagreement.
It’s important to note that Murphy is not working alone here. While he was issuing his order for Ethiopia, Senior U.S. District Judge Patti Saris, who also works in the District of Massachusetts, temporarily stopped the end of TPS for South Sudanese citizens. This is what African Communities Together did in both cases. There is a clear pattern: the same court, the same plaintiffs, the same arguments, and the same outcomes. It is still very unclear whether that pattern will still hold as appellate courts apply the Supreme Court’s decision from June in a more comprehensive way.
The people who are involved in this legal back-and-forth are having a rough time. Per court order, Employment Authorization Documents linked to the Ethiopia TPS designation have an empty expiration date of July 30, 2026. When employers fill out Form I-9, they are told to write “as per court order” in some fields. That level of stability isn’t easy to build a life around. As this happens, it seems like the legal system is moving at a speed that the lives of the people involved can’t keep up with.
The bigger question of whether or not this kind of TPS termination can be properly contested in federal court following Mullin v. Doe is still not clear. It’s possible that constitutional claims will give challengers a narrower but more stable legal path. Other courts may also take the Supreme Court’s decision in a broader sense and close that path. While they wait to find out what the United States’ immigration policy will decide their status is worth, 26,700 people are still protected. The lawsuits are still going on.
