In a proposed class action filed Monday, two nonprofit groups that aid African immigrants and refugees as well as four Somali nationals told a Massachusetts federal court that President Donald Trump "smeared" the Somali community in violation of the Fifth Amendment's equal protection clause following "unsubstantiated claims" of a fraud scheme perpetuated by Somali residents. While the administration terminated TPS for Somali migrants, it has not targeted TPS protections for majority-white Ukrainian immigrants, the plaintiffs said.
"Defendants' own statements and derogatory comments prior to, during, and after the periodic review and termination categorically slandered Somalis as garbage, criminals, pirates, scammers, and gang members even as they recognized, the crime, lack of governance, and other security issues in Somalia that would support the need for a TPS designation," the plaintiffs said in their lawsuit. "These statements carry the distinct tone of racist and xenophobic motivations to exclude Somali people from the country."
The suit, from African Communities Together, Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans, and four Somali citizens whose last names are anonymized in the complaint, is one of several recent lawsuits the Trump administration has faced over TPS designations, including another filed by ACT on Jan. 23 challenging TPS termination for Ethiopians. That suit also lodged accusations of discriminatory motives.
A spokesperson for DHS told Law360 on Tuesday that the Trump administrations is "putting Americans first."
"Temporary means temporary," the spokesperson said. "Country conditions in Somalia have improved to the point that it no longer meets the law's requirement for temporary protected status. Allowing Somali nationals to remain temporarily in the United States is contrary to our national interests."
DHS announced Jan. 13 that the TPS designation would expire March 17 because the country's "conditions in Somalia have improved to the point that it no longer meets the law's requirement" for the designation. The termination notice said their return would not pose a serious threat to their safety because there were areas in the country where they could live safely, but that is not the reality, the immigrants said.
The federal government has renewed the TPS designation for Somalia since 2002 in recognition of the ongoing civil war resulting in armed conflict and "severe" human rights violations, the plaintiffs said. Somali people have faced food insecurity, disease outbreaks, arbitrary detentions, physical violence, torture and the risk of being murdered in their home country, according to the lawsuit.
The TPS designation allows its recipients to legally work and live in the United States. The plaintiffs — three men and one woman — said without an emergency injunction preventing the TPS designation from expiring, Somali nationals would face the risk of deportation, forced separation from their loved ones and risk of being harmed in Somalia.
"Somali TPS holders, including the individual plaintiffs, have been experiencing tremendous emotional and psychological harm since the announcement of the termination, giving rise to the risk of heightened anxiety, trauma, insomnia, and depression," the lawsuit said.
There are 1,082 Somali nationals in the United States that are TPS holders and a remaining 1,383 who have pending TPS applications, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit said then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, who is also named as a defendant, violated the Administrative Procedure Act by failing to review objective information or consult with other agencies, such as U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, about the conditions in Somalia before making her decision. The plaintiffs noted that the U.S. Department of State issued a travel advisory for Somalia on May 14 referencing "extremely unsafe conditions there," but these were not mentioned in Noem's termination notice.
"Somalia's termination notice does not mention any agency by name that the secretary consulted during the periodic review process, describe the content of any consultations, nor mention who or what was considered during those consultations," the plaintiffs said.
The plaintiffs said in a Tuesday statement that review of the TPS designations was "infected by procedural deficiencies" and the termination has already caused harm to the Somali community.
"The administration has created a climate of terror before a single deportation order is issued," said Ramla Sahid, executive director of PANA. "What is happening to this community is an injustice, and we intend to fight it as such."
The plaintiffs are represented by Nargis Aslami, Golnaz Fakhimi, Sadaf Hasan, Collin Poirot and Abbey Rutherford of Muslim Advocates, Erik Crew of the Haitian Bridge Alliance and Kacey Mordecai, Mide Odunsi and Lauren Carbajal of the Legal Defense Fund.
Counsel information for DHS was not yet entered.
The case is African Communities Together et al. v. Noem et al., case number 1:26-cv-11201, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
--Additional reporting by Tom Lotshaw. Editing by Kelly Duncan.
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