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The Department of Homeland Security said today it is ending a form of humanitarian relief for Somali nationals living in the United States.

The Trump administration has stripped deportation protections from multiple nationalities in the US that were allowed to temporarily live in the country, arguing that conditions at home no longer justified those protections. The termination of the relief, known as Temporary Protected Status, has prompted legal challenges nationwide and has been blocked by federal judges in some instances.

Tuesday’s announcement comes as protections for Somalis were set to expire on March 17. During the Biden administration, then-Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas extended the program for the community. The department is required to decide whether to extend or terminate TPS at least 60 days prior to the designation’s expiration.

In November, President Donald Trump indicated that he intended to terminate protections for Somali immigrants residing in the US, claiming, “Somali gangs are terrorizing the people of that great State, and BILLIONS of Dollars are missing. Send them back to where they came from. It’s OVER!”

Somalis, particularly in Minnesota, have faced harassment and threats amid a welfare-fraud scandal that ensnared the community. Nearly 58% of Somalis in Minnesota were born in the US, according to the US Census Bureau. Of the foreign-born Somalis in Minnesota, an overwhelming majority – 87% – are naturalized US citizens.

TPS applies to people who would face extreme hardship if forced to return to homelands devastated by armed conflict or natural disasters, therefore so the protections are limited to people already in the United States.

Past Republican and Democratic administrations have designated the protections, though some Republicans have argued the relief shouldn’t have been extended multiple times.