The Daily Fuckup

A federal judge in Massachusetts has temporarily blocked the planned end of Ethiopia’s Temporary Protected Status, keeping the protections alive while the lawsuit plays out. In an April 8 order, U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy said plaintiffs were likely to succeed on claims that the Department of Homeland Security failed to consult the agencies the TPS statute requires and that the decision to end the designation may have been pretextual.

DHS published the termination notice on Dec. 15, 2025, and set the designation to end at 11:59 p.m. local time on Feb. 13, 2026. The court’s order postponed that effective date, rather than erasing the notice outright, and left the fight over the merits for later. The ruling is preliminary.

Murphy pointed to the statute’s language requiring consultation with appropriate agencies before the secretary reviews country conditions and makes a determination. He said the record showed only two agency communications, and neither dealt with conditions in Ethiopia. On that basis, he said the plaintiffs had shown a strong enough case for emergency relief to stop the termination from taking effect now.

The case matters for about 5,001 current TPS beneficiaries from Ethiopia, according to the federal notice. TPS gives eligible nationals temporary protection from deportation and work authorization when conditions in their home country make return unsafe. Ethiopia was first designated for TPS in 2022 and later extended and redesignated in 2024.

The administration’s notice said the secretary had concluded Ethiopia no longer met the legal conditions for the program. Murphy’s order does not settle whether that conclusion will stand. For now, it only means the government cannot end the designation on the timetable it announced.