By Nate Raymond
BOSTON, Jan 23 (Reuters) – Immigrant rights advocates have filed a lawsuit seeking to block U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration from ending temporary protections from deportation that had been granted to thousands of Ethiopians living in the United States.
Three Ethiopian nationals, along with the non-profit African Communities Together, allege in a lawsuit filed in Boston federal court on Thursday that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is unlawfully putting over 5,000 people at risk of losing their temporary protected status after February 13.
It marked the latest in a series of lawsuits challenging the Trump administration’s efforts to curtail protections from deportation extended to citizens of numerous countries through grants of Temporary Protected Status, or TPS.
Under federal law, TPS is available to people whose home countries have experienced natural disasters, armed conflicts or other extraordinary events. It provides eligible migrants with work authorization and temporary protection from deportation.
LAWSUIT ALLEGES ANIMUS AGAINST NON-WHITES
The lawsuit says that while Ethiopia remains a country in a humanitarian crisis, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem unlawfully terminated the Ethiopians’ legal status with just 60 days’ notice based on an unconstitutional animus against non-white immigrants. Ethiopia’s population is predominantly Black.
“The administration’s review of Ethiopia’s TPS designation resulting in the termination decision was motivated wrongly by politics and racism and ignored the rule of law, including the requirement to consider objective evidence of unsafe conditions in Ethiopia,” Amaha Kassa, executive director of African Communities Together, said in a statement.
Homeland Security Department spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin, in a statement said TPS “was never intended to be a de facto amnesty program, yet that’s how previous administrations have used it for decades.”
Numerous lawsuits have been filed challenging the administration’s moves to end similar protections for nationals from countries, including Syria, Venezuela, Haiti, Nicaragua and South Sudan, leading to court rulings that have at times slowed or halted the Trump administration’s efforts to strip migrants of their legal status.
The latest lawsuit was filed after DHS said on December 12 it was ending TPS for Ethiopia, saying conditions in the African nation no longer posed a serious threat to people returning safely to it and that TPS was “never meant to be a ticket to permanent residency.”
Former Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration granted Ethiopians already in the United States that status beginning in 2022, citing the need to protect citizens fleeing armed conflict in their home nation.
The Ethiopian military and allies, including troops from neighboring Eritrea, had been battling forces from the northern region of Tigray in a conflict that killed thousands and displaced millions of people.
While that civil war formally ended later in 2022, the Biden administration extended TPS for Ethiopians in mid-2024, citing armed conflict in another region, Amhara, which is ongoing.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi, Rod Nickel)
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