Temporary Protected Status for Somalia to End

DHS announced this week that Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Somalia would end effective March 17. Don’t get too excited — or upset — because the termination of Somalian TPS will only impact a handful of nationals of that country currently residing in the United States, but it nonetheless reflects a welcome change in the government’s perception of what was never meant to be a permanent status.

Temporary Protected Status, in Brief

Beginning with President Eisenhower in 1960, various administrations attempted to use an ad hoc designation, “Extended Voluntary Departure” (EVD), to allow nationals of certain countries to remain here out of concern they could not be safely repatriated due to wars or other disasters back home.

By 1989, Cuba and 15 other countries had been designated for EVD status, at which point Congress decided to take back its prerogative by regularizing and codifying the practice in statute.

Consequently, section 302 of the Immigration Act of 1990 (IMMACT 90) amended the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) by adding a new section 244 to that act, “Temporary Protected Status”.

As USCIS explains, pursuant to that provision:

The Secretary of Homeland Security may designate a foreign country for TPS due to conditions in the country that temporarily prevent the country's nationals from returning safely, or in certain circumstances, where the country is unable to handle the return of its nationals adequately. USCIS may grant TPS to eligible nationals of certain countries (or parts of countries), who are already in the United States. Eligible individuals without nationality who last resided in the designated country may also be granted TPS.

A country may be designated for TPS due to “ongoing armed conflict”, “environmental disaster”, or some similar “extraordinary and temporary condition”, and while such a designation is in effect, an alien granted TPS status cannot be removed and may be granted work and travel authorization.

Not all nationals of designated countries are eligible for that protection, however.

Aliens convicted in the United States of two misdemeanors or a felony aren’t eligible, and neither are those who are subject to any of the bars to asylum in section 208(b)(2)(A) of the INA, which include persecutors, security risks, those firmly resettled elsewhere, and aliens who committed “serious nonpolitical crimes” abroad.

All of this sounds reasonable and straightforward until you consider the fact that the “temporary” in TPS has been all-too-often a misnomer.

For example, El Salvador was first designated for TPS in March 2001 due to a series of earthquakes there that year, and it has been redesignated ever since.

The reasons given for those extensions have included “subsequent natural disasters and environmental challenges, including hurricanes and tropical storms”; “heavy rains and flooding”; “volcanic and seismic activity”; “an ongoing coffee rust epidemic”; and “a prolonged regional drought ... impacting food security”.

Too much rain in a country designated for TPS? Redesignation. Too little rain? Ditto. Agricultural blight impacting local crops? Same.

TPS for Somalia

Incredibly, Somalia was first designated for “temporary” protected status on September 16, 1991, and as a previous extension of the designation for that country in 2015 noted:

The initial designation was extended nine times based on determinations that the conditions warranting the designation continued to be met. On September 4, 2001, the Attorney General extended Somalia's TPS designation for a tenth time and redesignated Somalia for TPS. ... Somalia's TPS designation was subsequently extended nine additional times, including on May 1, 2012, when the Secretary both extended and redesignated Somalia for TPS and added ongoing armed conflict as an additional basis for Somalia's TPS designation. Under the 2012 redesignation, the Secretary revised the "continuous residence" date to May 1, 2012, and the "continuous physical presence" date to September 18, 2012. [Citations omitted.]

Somalia’s designation wasn’t premised on earthquakes or hurricanes, or even “coffee rust”; rather the issue has been some combination of entropy here and poor governance and internecine fighting there ever since “President” Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown in a “bloody civil war” in 1991.

Years of turmoil followed, but as the CIA World Factbook explains, in 2012 “Somali powerbrokers agreed on a provisional constitution with a loose federal structure and established a central government in Mogadishu called the Somali Federal Government (SFG).”

“Since then,” according to the agency, “the country has seen several interim regional administrations and three presidential elections, but significant governance and security problems remain because” of the activities in the country by the designated foreign terrorist group, Al-Shabaab.

“Country Conditions in Somalia Have Improved”

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has now concluded that, “Country conditions in Somalia have improved to the point that it no longer meets the law’s requirement for Temporary Protected Status,” and I’ll note the country currently has a permanent representative at the United Nations (UN), Amb. Abukar Dahir Osman, who this month is serving as president of the UN Security Council.

Amb. Osman must be a busy man, because interestingly, the deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services tweeted about him just last week:

In any event, and notwithstanding the fact that section 244(b)(5)(A) of the INA makes clear that “there is no judicial review of any determination of the [DHS secretary] with respect to the ... termination ... of a designation, of a foreign state” for TPS, Noem’s decision will likely be subject to court challenge.

Doesn’t Impact Many Somalis in the United States

Not that there are many Somali nationals in the United States who currently have TPS, although the exact number is strangely elusive.

In August, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service reported that “705 nationals of Somalia were covered by TPS” as of the end of last March, while BBC on Monday cited DHS as claiming “there are 2,471 Somali nationals with TPS, and 1,383 people with pending applications”.

That’s a rather significant discrepancy, though I’ll note it’s out of an estimated population of about 98,000 foreign-born Somalis in the United States, according to NBC News.

But, given that the Census Bureau reports that just 16,184 of those foreign-born Somalis hadn’t become U.S. citizens as of 2024, the population of the ones who could apply for TPS is rather small.

While one can argue about how well Somali immigrants have assimilated in the United States, the rate at which they’ve figured out the naturalization process is impressive.

“Temporary Means Temporary”

In the short run, don’t expect the foreign-born Somali population to decline by much due to the most recent TPS announcement. Court challenges lay ahead and even if those Somalis who have TPS eventually lose it, they can still seek some other status, like asylum.

The most important part of DHS’s announcement on the termination of TPS for Somalia can be found in this quote from Secretary Noem: “Temporary means temporary.” That’s a sentiment not associated with “Temporary” Protected Status in a long time, and it’s a welcome change.