Federal judges in Boston and Chicago handed the Trump administration two more wins on Temporary Protected Status Friday, allowing DHS to end deportation protections for South Sudan and Burma, bringing the total number of countries stripped of TPS designations to eleven.
The twin rulings mark the latest in a rapid string of courtroom victories for the Department of Homeland Security, which has now ended TPS protections for nationals of Haiti, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Cameroon, Nepal, Honduras, Nicaragua, Venezuela, South Sudan, and Burma. The decisions affect more than one million migrants who had been living and working in the United States under the temporary designation, which shields foreign nationals from deportation when conditions in their home countries are deemed too dangerous for return.
DHS General Counsel James Percival announced the Burma and South Sudan victories in a post on X, calling the rulings the administration's latest legal win. The Burma decision alone covers roughly 3,700 Burmese nationals whose protections can now be terminated. As of August 7, only two TPS-designated countries, Ethiopia and Somalia, remain shielded by active court orders blocking the administration from proceeding.
The scope of the administration's TPS rollback is difficult to overstate. Breitbart reported that the affected populations include roughly 350,000 Haitians, 618,000 Venezuelans, 72,000 Hondurans, 13,000 Nepalis, and 12,000 Afghans, along with thousands more from Syria, Yemen, Cameroon, Nicaragua, South Sudan, and Burma. Taken together, the terminations cover a population larger than most mid-sized American cities.
TPS was designed as a narrow, temporary measure, a way to pause deportations when a country suffered a natural disaster, armed conflict, or other extraordinary crisis. Over the decades, successive administrations extended and re-extended designations, sometimes for years or even decades after the original triggering event had passed. Critics on the right have long argued that what was supposed to be a short-term reprieve became a permanent backdoor to residency, with little accountability and no clear endpoint.
The administration's push to end those rolling extensions has met resistance in the federal courts, but the legal tide has shifted decisively in DHS's favor. The First Circuit upheld Trump's authority to end TPS protections earlier this year, reversing lower-court rulings by Biden-appointed judges who had tried to block the terminations.
Friday's decisions in Boston and Chicago followed that trajectory. In both cases, federal judges sided with DHS, clearing the path for the agency to move forward with ending protections for South Sudanese and Burmese nationals.
Court orders blocking TPS terminations for Ethiopia and Somalia are still in effect, and those cases have become a source of friction between the administration and the judiciary. A Biden-appointed judge defied the Supreme Court to shield Ethiopian TPS holders, a move DHS said was not the first time that judge had intervened to block the administration's immigration enforcement.
The Somalia case has drawn its own congressional response. Rep. Andy Ogles filed an impeachment resolution against the judge who blocked Trump's Somalia TPS termination, arguing that the court had overstepped its authority. Whether those remaining orders survive further appeals will determine whether the administration can complete its sweep of all TPS-designated countries.
But the broader pattern is clear. Across eleven countries, the courts have either declined to intervene or been overturned on appeal. The legal architecture that immigration advocates relied on to preserve TPS designations has eroded steadily, ruling by ruling.
For the more than one million migrants covered by the terminated designations, the practical consequences are still taking shape. Users on X pressed the administration on removal timelines and how many migrants from affected countries have already left the United States voluntarily. Those numbers have not been made public.
The administration has not detailed the specific enforcement mechanisms it plans to use as TPS protections expire country by country. ICE has already begun preparing for large-scale operations in at least some cases. The agency has been readying a major enforcement push against Haitians as their TPS expiration nears, a signal that the terminations are not merely symbolic.
The Haitian population alone, roughly 350,000 people, represents a logistical challenge of enormous scale. The Venezuelan population is nearly double that. How DHS prioritizes enforcement, and how quickly, will test the agency's operational capacity in ways that courtroom wins alone cannot resolve.
The Supreme Court has already weighed in on the broader question of executive authority over TPS. The high court backed the end of TPS for Haitians and Syrians, a decision that prompted sharp criticism from progressive lawmakers but reinforced the administration's legal footing across the board.
The Burma and South Sudan decisions did not arrive in a vacuum. They are the latest entries in a string of wins that began with larger populations, Haiti, Venezuela, Honduras, and has now reached smaller designations like Burma's 3,700 nationals. Each ruling has narrowed the legal ground available to TPS advocates and widened the administration's authority to act.
DHS General Counsel Percival's public announcement on X reflected the administration's confidence. With eleven countries cleared and only two remaining under court orders, the legal question is no longer whether the administration has the power to end TPS designations. It is whether any court will sustain the argument that it does not.
Temporary was always supposed to mean temporary. Eleven rulings later, the government is finally acting like it does.
