Judge Burroughs Lifts Stay on Termination of Somalia TPS Following Impeachment Articles and Supreme Court Precedent

U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs on Friday lifted an administrative stay that had blocked the Trump administration from ending Temporary Protected Status for Somali nationals, allowing the termination to take effect after weeks of delay and the filing of articles of impeachment against her.

Burroughs, an Obama appointee sitting in the District of Massachusetts, had maintained the stay for approximately 50 days. The action came after Department of Homeland Security General Counsel James Percival publicly criticized the prolonged hold, describing it as deliberate sabotage and cynical gamesmanship by a politically motivated district judge who had failed to issue a clear, appealable order despite promising one earlier in the week. With the stay lifted, the termination of Somalia TPS is now in effect.

The dispute centered on the administration’s decision earlier this year to end TPS for Somalis after determining that conditions in the country no longer met the statutory requirements for the temporary humanitarian program. Plaintiffs, including advocacy groups, challenged the move and later filed an amended complaint alleging racial and national-origin discrimination. Burroughs issued successive stays, most recently in early August, to allow further briefing on those claims.

This lower-court intervention occurred against the backdrop of a clear Supreme Court ruling issued in June. In a 6-3 decision in Mullin v. Doe (consolidated with Trump v. Miot), the Court held that the Temporary Protected Status statute largely bars judicial review of non-constitutional claims related to the designation or termination of TPS for a foreign state. Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito emphasized the plain language of 8 U.S.C. § 1254a(b)(5)(A), which states there is “no judicial review of any determination” with respect to the termination of a TPS designation. The Court allowed the administration to proceed with ending TPS for Haitian and Syrian nationals, rejecting or finding unlikely to succeed equal-protection claims that the terminations were motivated by race. The decision underscored that TPS is temporary by design and significantly limited the ability of district courts to enjoin such executive determinations.

Critics, including members of Congress and DHS officials, argued that Burroughs’s continued stays effectively ignored or sought to circumvent that precedent by keeping the Somalia termination on hold through procedural delay and new allegations of animus. On August 3, Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) introduced articles of impeachment (H. Res. 1472) against Burroughs. The resolution charged her with high crimes and misdemeanors for defying both federal law and the Supreme Court by issuing the stay, attempting to get around the Mullin ruling through spurious discrimination claims, and usurping authority reserved to the executive branch. Ogles stated that the judge was ignoring the Court and attempting to force continued migration protections from Somalia into American communities.

DHS had set a termination date for Somalia TPS and maintained that the program covers a limited number of individuals—estimates ranged from roughly 700 to about 1,100 eligible for the status—within a larger Somali population in the United States. Administration officials framed the broader effort to wind down TPS designations as consistent with the temporary nature of the authority Congress created in 1990.

The lifting of the stay marks the latest development in a series of legal confrontations over the administration’s immigration enforcement priorities. While impeachment of a federal judge requires majority support in the House and a two-thirds vote in the Senate for conviction and removal—a high bar rarely met—the filing and subsequent court action have intensified debate over the proper scope of lower-court review following the Supreme Court’s June decision. The termination of Somalia TPS can now proceed, subject to any further appellate developments.