A federal judge on Friday cleared the way for President Donald Trump’s administration to terminate temporary deportation protections for hundreds of South Sudanese nationals living in the United States.
U.S. District Judge Patti Saris in Boston rejected a renewed attempt by immigrant-rights advocates to preserve Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, for South Sudanese nationals, following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June that allowed the administration to end similar protections for thousands of people from Haiti and Syria.
The Supreme Court’s conservative 6-3 majority has limited the ability of lower courts to block the Department of Homeland Security from terminating TPS designations as the Trump administration moves to end protections for nationals of around a dozen countries.
TPS allows eligible people from countries affected by armed conflict, natural disasters or other extraordinary conditions to remain temporarily in the United States and obtain authorization to work.
South Sudan was first granted TPS in 2011, the year it gained independence.
The Department of Homeland Security moved in November to terminate the designation, arguing that conditions in the conflict-hit country no longer justified continued protection.
The decision affects more than 232 South Sudanese nationals currently covered by TPS, as well as at least 73 others with applications still pending. Saris had previously issued an order temporarily preventing the protections from being withdrawn.
Following the Supreme Court ruling, lawyers representing several South Sudanese nationals and the nonprofit African Communities Together asked Saris to block the termination again using legal arguments that had not been addressed by the justices.
Among their arguments was a claim that DHS did not have the legal authority to terminate TPS because the 1990 law establishing the programme referred specifically to the U.S. attorney general as the official empowered to grant, extend or terminate the protections.
DHS did not exist when the TPS law was enacted. The department was established in 2002 following the September 11, 2001 attacks, and subsequently took over many immigration-related responsibilities previously held by the Justice Department.
Saris, who was appointed by former Democratic President Bill Clinton, ruled that Congress had effectively transferred authority over TPS to DHS along with those other immigration functions.
She said the plaintiffs’ argument was internally contradictory because, if DHS lacked the authority to terminate South Sudan’s TPS status, it would also have lacked the authority to extend the designation in previous years.
Under that interpretation, she wrote, South Sudan’s original TPS protection would itself be invalid for the same reason.
James Percival, general counsel for DHS, welcomed the ruling in a post on X and urged judges overseeing similar lawsuits to remove orders preventing the administration from ending TPS for nationals of other countries.
He said continuing court-imposed stays prevented the administration from carrying out the immigration policies voters had supported.
Representatives for the South Sudanese plaintiffs did not immediately comment on the ruling.
