A federal judge in Massachusetts has cleared the way for the Trump administration to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for South Sudanese nationals living in the United States, a decision that could lead to deportation for hundreds of people. The ruling, issued on Friday, August 7, 2026, by US District Judge Patti Saris, dealt a significant blow to immigrant rights advocates who had sought to maintain protections for this vulnerable group.
Court Rejects Challenge by Immigrant Rights Groups
Judge Saris, who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton, rejected a challenge brought by several immigrant rights organizations, including New York-based African Communities Together. The groups had argued that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) lacked the legal authority to terminate South Sudan's TPS designation.
In her 15-page ruling, Saris concluded that the plaintiffs' legal argument was self-defeating. She wrote that "as a logical matter, plaintiffs' arguments rest upon a self-contradictory, self-defeating foundation," explaining that if the DHS had no authority to end South Sudan's TPS designation, it equally had no authority to grant it in the first place. Saris also found that Congress had transferred TPS authority from the attorney general to the DHS when the department was established in 2002 following the September 11 attacks.
Background: Supreme Court Ruling and DHS Decision
The decision follows a 6-3 US Supreme Court ruling in June that allowed the Trump administration to strip TPS from more than 350,000 Haitians and about 6,100 Syrians, overturning earlier rulings from courts in New York and Washington DC that had blocked those terminations, as reported by The Guardian.
The DHS moved in November to terminate South Sudan's TPS designation, arguing the country no longer met the conditions that initially qualified it for the programme when it was first designated in 2011. That earlier termination move would have ended protections for more than 232 South Sudanese nationals and at least 73 others with pending applications, though Saris had previously blocked it from taking effect.
Impact on South Sudanese Nationals
TPS allows eligible nationals from countries facing crises such as civil war or natural disasters to live and work legally in the US and shields them from deportation. Losing that status can leave immigrants vulnerable to arrest, detention, and removal, even where asylum or green card applications remain pending, according to Reuters.
Advocacy group Global Refuge condemned the ruling. Its CEO, Krish O'Mara Vignarajah, said South Sudan "is on the brink of a return to an all-out-civil war," adding that roughly 10 million people, about two-thirds of the population, now depend on humanitarian aid to survive. Vignarajah described the move as "the administration's deliberate choice to send a small group of vulnerable individuals and families back into a country where civilians are bearing the brunt of intensifying violence and displacement."
Reactions and Broader Context
DHS general counsel James Percival welcomed the ruling on X, calling on other TPS judges to follow suit. South Sudan has experienced severe instability since gaining independence in 2011, with more than 400,000 people killed in conflict over that period.
Since 2001, TPS holders across all nationalities have paid $7.8 billion annually in taxes and contributed $262 billion to the US economy, according to advocacy organisation Fwd.us. This ruling is part of a broader pattern of TPS terminations by the Trump administration, which has also affected Haitians and Syrians.
Previous TPS Termination for Haitians
Previously, it was reported that more than 300,000 Haitians living in the United States lost the humanitarian protections that allowed them to remain and work legally in the country, after the Trump administration moved to terminate TPS for Haiti, exposing hundreds of thousands of people to the threat of arrest and forced return to one of the world's most dangerous countries. US District Judge Ana Reyes confirmed on Wednesday, August 5, that her earlier court order, which had blocked the DHS from ending TPS for Haitian nationals, was no longer in force.
