Contact: Golnaz Fakhimi, [email protected]

Advocates Fight Back Against Trump Administration’s Unlawful Termination of TPS for South Sudanese Families

(New York/Boston) – Today, South Sudanese nationals who have built their lives in the United States filed a federal lawsuit in the District Court for the District of Massachusetts challenging the Trump administration’s decision to terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for South Sudan. The lawsuit argues that the TPS termination is unconstitutional because it was based on discriminatory animus and that it was issued illegally because the administration did not follow the required statutory procedures under the Administrative Procedures Act. The lawsuit seeks to prevent hundreds of South Sudanese from losing their legal status and work authorization, and from facing deportation amidst ongoing crises in South Sudan. 

Communities United for Status & Protection (CUSP), a national collaborative of grassroots immigrant-led organizations, coordinated this lawsuit alongside African Communities Together (ACT), which serves as the organizational plaintiff. Muslim Advocates, Haitian Bridge Alliance, and Covington & Burling LLP represent the plaintiffs, who are community members living across the United States. 

“The Trump administration’s termination of TPS for South Sudan is not an isolated decision—it’s part of a coordinated assault on Black, Asian, Arab, and immigrant communities of color who have made their lives here,” said Carolyn Tran, Executive Director of Communities United for Status & Protection (CUSP). “From South Sudan to Ethiopia, Syria to Afghanistan, Haiti to Nepal, this administration is systematically targeting TPS holders from the Global South while ignoring the very real dangers that persist in their home countries. Our collaborative of grassroots immigrant-led organizations will continue to fight back through the courts, through organizing, and through building the cross-movement solidarity necessary to defend our communities. When they come for one of us, they come for all of us—and we will meet their attacks with collective resistance rooted in the power and leadership of directly impacted communities.”

Advocates argue that the termination of TPS for South Sudan is one piece of the Trump administration’s coordinated campaign to delegalize hundreds of thousands of Black, Asian, Arab, and immigrant communities of color through mass TPS terminations—Syria, Afghanistan, Cameroon, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Burma, and now South Sudan. Recently, the Administration exploited the tragic killing of a National Guard member in Washington, D.C., to halt all asylum decisions, suspend Afghan immigration, and order green card reviews for 19 countries, while scapegoating Somali and Afghan communities. 

“This pattern reveals the administration’s true agenda: stripping protections from immigrant communities of color regardless of the dangers they face. The termination of TPS for South Sudan follows the same pattern—a sweeping policy change that ignores ongoing armed conflict and humanitarian catastrophe in favor of mass deportation,” said Amaha Kassa, Executive Director of African Communities Together (ACT).

For more than a decade, the U.S. government has designated and redesignated South Sudan for TPS in recognition of the armed conflict and extraordinary conditions that make it unsafe for South Sudanese nationals to return. These dangerous conditions persist today, with the world’s youngest nation continuing to face active armed conflict, widespread displacement, food insecurity affecting millions, and the complete breakdown of essential infrastructure and services. 

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit have fled violence and instability in South Sudan, and the Trump administration’s termination would force them back into the same dangers that Congress created TPS to protect them from. The termination would tear families apart, forcibly separating South Sudanese TPS holders from their U.S. citizen children, spouses, parents, and siblings.

This termination of TPS for South Sudan follows similar efforts this year to strip TPS status from hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Nepal, Afghanistan, Syria, Burma, and Cameroon. The lawsuit argues that this systematic targeting of TPS holders from Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America makes clear that this administration’s immigration policies are driven by white nationalism and anti-immigrant animus—not by objective assessments of country conditions or adherence to the law. President Trump also previously attempted to end TPS during his first administration, and multiple administration officials have publicly condemned the TPS program. 

“The consequences of these terminations and the threat of more reverberate across communities. South Sudanese TPS holders stand alongside Cameroonians already facing deportation to the ongoing war, Afghans stripped of protections despite serving alongside U.S. forces, Nepalis whose status has been revoked, and Ethiopians, Yemenis, Somalis, and Lebanese communities living in fear as the administration signals they are next. This approach—using sweeping policy changes to delegalize entire communities rather than conducting individualized assessments of safety—represents a fundamental betrayal of the humanitarian protections that Congress established through the TPS program,” said Abbey Koenning-Rutherford, Staff Attorney at Muslim Advocates. 

“The termination of TPS for South Sudan is yet another unlawful and discriminatory attack on Black immigrant communities,” said Erik Crew, Staff Attorney at Haitian Bridge Alliance. “Stripping protections from South Sudanese nationals at this time, amongst similar attacks targeting Haitian, Cameroonian, and Somali TPS holders, reveals an agenda rooted in racial discrimination and unlawful disregard for the Temporary Protected Status statute. HBA will continue to fight alongside our partners to ensure that families are not torn apart and that the protections promised by law remain real for those who need it most.”

Temporary Protected Status is a humanitarian protection established by Congress to prevent deportations to countries experiencing armed conflict, environmental disasters, or other extraordinary conditions. 

Communities United for Status & Protection (CUSP) is a national collaborative of grassroots immigrant-led organizations working together to win permanent status for our members and communities, and build a more inclusive immigrant rights movement that centers the needs and experiences of African, Afro-Caribbean, Afro-Latinx, Arab/Middle Eastern, and Asian & Pacific Islander immigrants.

African Communities Together is an organization of African immigrants fighting for civil rights, opportunity, and a better life for our families here in the U.S. and worldwide.

Muslim Advocates is a national civil rights organization that uses litigation, policy engagement and communications strategies to promote justice and equity while protecting the diverse spectrum of Muslim communities from anti-Muslim discrimination in all of its forms.

Haitian Bridge Alliance advocates for fair and humane immigration policies and provides migrants and immigrants with humanitarian, legal, and social services, with a particular focus on Black people, the Haitian community, women and girls, LGBTQIA+ individuals, and survivors of torture and other human rights abuses.

Covington & Burling LLP has demonstrated a strong commitment to public service. The firm is frequently recognized for pro bono service, including being ranked 12 times as the number one pro bono practice in the U.S. by The American Lawyer. Much of the firm’s pro bono work is anchored in meeting local needs, serving economically disadvantaged individuals and families in our surrounding communities, in addition to its long history of serving vulnerable clients and important causes throughout the U.S. and the world.