South Sudanese immigrants in the United States will remain protected from deportation for now after a Massachusetts federal judge temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s move to end Temporary Protected Status, a program that allows qualifying residents to live and work in the country while conditions in their home countries are reassessed.
The case centers on Trump’s plan to revoke TPS for nationals of South Sudan. Under the termination schedule, the change was set to take effect Jan. 6, 2026, a timeline that would have made roughly 300 South Sudanese TPS holders living and working in the U.S. eligible for deportation, along with people with pending applications. The question before the court, Judge Angel Kelley wrote, is whether the federal government can lawfully end that status while the litigation plays out.
Kelley’s temporary order, written for the proceeding in Massachusetts, barred the government from initiating deportation while the final decision is pending. The judge said the consequences of the change are “significant and far-reaching” and “require a full and careful consideration of the merits by the Court,” adding that the court changes could cause potentially irreversible harm to the East African migrants, according to the order quoted in the report.
The revocation was challenged after civil rights groups sued the Department of Homeland Security in late December. In their complaint, the plaintiffs argued that ending the South Sudan TPS designation violated administrative procedure and the Constitution. They also claimed the effort was aimed to “significantly reduce the number of non-white and non-European immigrants in the United States” based on race.
After the judge issued the order, the Department of Homeland Security criticized it in a Tuesday statement. In that response, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin called the decision “Yet another lawless and activist order from the federal judiciary” and said it continued to “usurp the President’s constitutional authority.” McLaughlin also said the previous administration’s Temporary Protected Status program “was abused” to allow violent terrorists, criminals and national security threats into the country.
McLaughlin’s statement, according to the report, also pointed to what she described as changed conditions in South Sudan. She said there is “renewed peace in South Sudan” and referenced “their demonstrated commitment to ensuring the safe reintegration of returning nationals, and improved diplomatic relations.” She argued, without providing evidence in the statement, that “Now is the right time to conclude what was always intended to be a temporary designation.”
The lawsuit drew on concerns about conditions in South Sudan and the limits of the country’s state capacity. The report said U.N. experts described how “Years of neglect have fragmented government and opposition forces alike,” resulting in a “patchwork of uniformed soldiers, defectors and armed community defense groups.” It also said the country remained reliant on aid amid conflict, and that hunger monitors warned parts of conflict-hit South Sudan were moving toward famine conditions.
Dorian Spence, litigation coordinator for Communities United for Status and Protection, said DHS could not justify the safety of return while other parts of the federal government tell travelers not to go. Spence argued, in remarks included in the report, that she did not understand how DHS could say it is safe for South Sudan TPS holders to return when the State Department says travel there is not safe. Spence also said the move was part of a broader effort to make America “whiter,” linking the policy to how the administration treats other refugee and protection decisions.
Critics in South Sudan described the termination as political retaliation, the report said, including a claim that South Sudan stopped accepting deportees from the U.S. as part of a program to send migrants to third countries. The report said at least eight men were deported to South Sudan from the U.S. earlier in the year. In South Sudan, that backdrop is part of why some residents characterized the TPS withdrawal as targeted at the country’s political choices rather than only as a reassessment of conditions.
The Trump administration has sought to withdraw other immigration protections in recent months, including ending TPS designations for Venezuelans and Haitians who received protection under President Joe Biden, the report said. The report also noted that protected status for immigrants from Ethiopia, Cameroon, Afghanistan, Nepal, Burma, Syria, Nicaragua and Honduras is also in jeopardy.