New judicial victory for Trump: Court authorizes the end of TPS for two African countries

The First Circuit Court of Appeals allowed the Trump administration to proceed with terminating Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for citizens of Ethiopia and South Sudan, overturning two court orders that had temporarily blocked the measure.

Specifically, the court overturned two lower-court rulings that had ordered TPS to remain in effect for citizens of both countries while lawsuits filed by the organization African Communities Together and other program beneficiaries were under review.

Judges Julie Rikelman, Seth Aframe, and Joshua Dunlap concluded that the lower courts' orders were inconsistent with the precedent recently established by the Supreme Court in the case Mullin v. Doe. According to that ruling, federal courts cannot block the termination of TPS solely on nonconstitutional claims. Both Rikelman and Aframe were nominated during the Biden administration.

The decision represents another victory for President Donald Trump and comes just weeks after the Supreme Court limited the scope of federal courts' review of the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) decisions to terminate TPS designations.

"Mullin held that 'the TPS statute's judicial-review bar applies to all non-constitutional claims' challenging the Secretary of Homeland Security's determination with respect to the termination of a TPS designation," the justices wrote in their ruling.

After the decision was announced, Iowa Attorney General Eric Wessan welcomed the ruling. "These are clear wins for President Trump following his big win at the U.S. Supreme Court, explaining that district courts are not supposed to second guess TPS terminations, and even as this plays out, we're moving towards the end of this litigation because district courts should not be hearing these disputes, and that's what the Supreme Court said," he told Fox News Digital.