The Trump administration is ending Temporary Protected Status for Somalia, affecting several thousand Somali immigrants currently living in the United States and several hundred living in Minnesota under the program.
Somali immigrants with TPS will be required to leave the country by March 17.
“Temporary means temporary,” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem told Fox News in a statement. “Country conditions in Somalia have improved to the point that it no longer meets the law’s requirement for Temporary Protected Status. Further, allowing Somali nationals to remain temporarily in the United States is contrary to our national interests,” Noem added. “We are putting Americans first.”
Sources at USCIS say that 2,471 Somali nationals are currently in the U.S. under TPS, with another 1,383 in the country with pending TPS applications. An estimated 600 Somali nationals protected by TPS live in Minnesota.
Somalia was first designated for TPS in 1991 due to civil war, and the protection was most recently extended by Joe Biden in September 2024.
