What to know about Trump’s threat to end Temporary Protected Status for Somalis in Minnesota

President Donald Trump’s Friday night announcement that he’s ending Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Somalis living in Minnesota has officials scrambling to figure out what to do.

His announcement comes as the Department of Homeland Security just announced it’s ending the protected status of citizens from Myanmar, formerly known as Burma.

On Monday, advocates gathered at the State Capitol to protest Trump’s plans and have vowed to push back on the administration’s directive.

Here’s what we know so far.

Regardless of what Trump posted on social media, the president cannot unilaterally end the Temporary Protected Status program. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem would have to initiate the change.

During a visit to Minnesota on Sunday, Noem did not say definitively whether DHS would follow through on Trump’s order but indicated that the agency was exploring the possibility.

“We plan to follow the process that’s in law to evaluate TPS and how it applies to different countries and individuals from them. It was never meant to be an asylum program,” Noem said. “It was always meant to be put in place after an incident or an event on a temporary basis, and that’s what the evaluation will be.”

Trump’s Friday night announcement followed a report published last week in a magazine run by the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank. Citing federal counterterrorism sources, the City Journal report alleged that fraud carried out by members of Minnesota’s Somali community has resulted in millions in stolen money being sent to the al-Shabab terrorist group in Somalia.

The report quickly circulated in conservative circles.

“Somalis in Minnesota seem to have been over-diagnosing their children with autism so they can swindle millions from taxpayers to funnel to Al-Shabaab terrorists,“ Rep. Tom Emmer, the No. 3 Republican in the U.S. House, wrote in a 10-part thread on X Friday. “Sounds crazy? It is. And it’s all been enabled by Tim Walz.”

Emmer ended his thread, posted hours before Trump’s announcement, by warning, “accountability is coming.”

Jaylani Hussein, executive director of Council on American-Islamic Relations, Minnesota chapter, (CAIR-MN) said at a Monday news conference that it was a claim the FBI had never made regarding money stolen through fraud schemes. The agency had traced taxpayer funds to land and other purchases, but never definitively to terrorist groups.

TPS is a protection the Department of Homeland Security can designate to individuals from conflict zones who are not able to return home safely to their home country or whose home country is not able to adequately handle their return.

When individuals are granted TPS, they have legal status in the U.S. and are not able to be detained by DHS due to their immigration status. They can also legally work in the country, have travel authorization and can’t be removed from the U.S.

TPS does not guarantee lawful permanent resident status but recipients can file for an adjustment of their status.

If TPS was revoked, recipients would have a 60-day window to apply for other legal protections, such as seeking asylum.

Abruptly revoking Somalia’s eligibility for the program would undermine a core tenet of TPS because the U.S. government would essentially be saying it is safe for refugees to return to a country still plagued by violence, Hussein said.

The Congressional Research Service estimates that, as of March 31, 705 Somali citizens are on TPS across the country. A report from the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota from 2023 estimated there were about 430 Somalis living in Minnesota on TPS.

Somalia was granted TPS status in 1991 during the country’s civil war. Former DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas extended Somalia’s TPS designation through March 17, 2026, before he left the agency.

Hussein said TPS was a lifeline for Somalis fleeing violence. He noted that the first Somalis came to the U.S. under the program during former President George H.W. Bush’s administration.

It’s unclear what the state can do to potentially stop DHS from ending TPS for Somali immigrants. But the Governor’s Office admitted that, because the federal government oversees federal immigration policy, the state has a limited role in what it can do.

Attorney General Keith Ellison said Monday that lawsuits successfully blocked the first Trump administration from ending TPS for refugees from several countries. But his office is still exploring its options.

Trump’s announcement has been met with panic and shock from Minnesota’s Somali community, the largest of any state in the U.S., as well as outrage from Minnesota’s Democrats.

“I am a citizen and so are majority of Somalis in America,” Somalia-born U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar said on X shortly after Trump’s announcement. “Good luck celebrating a policy change that really doesn’t have much impact on the Somalis you love to hate. We are here to stay.”

CAIR-MN representatives said Trump’s posts have generated a lot of fear in the Somali community.

“This development is something to be taken seriously, but not to be cause for alarm,” said Alec Shaw, civil rights attorney for CAIR-MN. “We expect there to be legal challenges to follow any moves the administration actually takes.”

High-ranking Minnesota Republicans have cheered on Trump’s announcement.

Emmer and the state’s three other Republicans in Congress have also asked U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen to investigate whether stolen fraud money really was funneled to al-Shabab following the City Journal report.