A federal judge has blocked the administration of President Donald Trump from revoking legal protections for about 5,000 Ethiopians that permit them to live and work in the United States without fear of deportation.

District Judge Brian Murphy issued the ruling on Thursday, marking the latest setback for the administration’s efforts to roll back legal immigration status for people from largely non-Western countries.

Murphy also cited Congress’s role in setting standards for how Temporary Protected Status (TPS) should be granted and revoked. Trump, the judge said, had ignored those procedures.

“Fundamental to this case — and indeed to our constitutional system — is the principle that the will of the President does not supersede that of Congress,” Murphy wrote. “Presidential whims do not and cannot supplant agencies’ statutory obligations.”

The Trump administration has attempted to nix TPS designations for 13 countries, part of its efforts to restrict migration to the US and expel certain groups already living in the country.

TPS grants eligible foreigners in the US the right to remain and work in the country, if their home is deemed temporarily unsafe, due to conflict, natural disaster or other “extraordinary” conditions.

In his decision, Murphy cited an executive order Trump signed in January 2025 that instructed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to review whether TPS designations were “appropriately limited in scope”.

That order, he said, gave DHS a “pretextual” basis to eliminate TPS designations, bypassing the normal protocols.

It sent the signal that “the outcome of designation, extension, and termination decisions will be preordained, rather than based on a meaningful review of in-country conditions,” according to Murphy.

A DHS spokesperson responded to the Thursday ruling by stating that it was “just the latest example of judicial activists trying to prevent President Trump from restoring integrity to America’s legal immigration system”.

Ethiopians were first granted TPS in 2022 under Trump’s Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden, due to armed conflict and humanitarian suffering. Their protected status was extended in April 2024. (Aljazeera News)

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