Activists cry 'racist,' sue to block removal of Somalis' special status

In a 2-1 ruling on Friday, a pair of federal appellate judges appointed by former President Joe Biden blocked the Trump administration from revoking Haiti's Temporary Protected Status designation — a special status that not only shields over 350,000 Haitian nationals from removal but enables them to continue displacing American labor.

Apparently emboldened by the D.C.-based appellate court's ruling, activists have filed a federal lawsuit in hopes of similarly blocking the Trump administration from ending Somalia's special status.

The long, slow goodbye

BlazeTV host Christopher Rufo and investigative reporter Ryan Thorpe highlighted in a damning Nov. 19 report various instances of alleged and confirmed fraud perpetrated by members of the Somali community in Minnesota as well as the alleged direction of stolen taxpayer funds by members of the Somali community to terrorists abroad.

'We are putting Americans first.'

Two days later, President Donald Trump announced that he was terminating the TPS designation for Somalia, stating, "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!"

Amid multiple investigations into the pervasive fraud within the heavily welfare-dependent Somali community, the Department of Homeland Security announced in January that the crime-ridden East African nation would be stripped of its special status effective March 17.

The DHS advised Somali nationals without legal status apart from TPS to start the process of self-deporting.

Somalia was initially designated for TPS in 1991 based on a determination that there were "extraordinary and temporary conditions" in Somalia preventing its expatriates from returning. This supposedly temporary designation was repeatedly extended over the next three decades.

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Photo by ABDISHUKRI HAYBE/AFP via Getty Images

A Jan. 14 notice in the Federal Register pointed out, however, that the situation in Somalia has materially changed and that the country "today shows improved national governance and security structures and now experiences localized pockets of violence rather than nationwide, generalized conflict."

The notice stated further that "requiring Somali nationals to return to Somalia would not pose a serious threat to their personal safety as there are areas within Somalia where Somali nationals may live in safety."

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem stated, "Allowing Somali nationals to remain temporarily in the United States is contrary to our national interests. We are putting Americans first."

The lawsuit

African Communities Together — an activist group that has challenged the Trump administration's efforts to repatriate various temporarily welcomed African migrant groups — joined the California-based Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans and four Somalis in filing a lawsuit on Monday, accusing the administration of violating the Administrative Procedure Act as well as the Fifth Amendment.

The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, downplays Somali criminality in the U.S., claims that the migrants' homeland is not as safe as the U.S. government has said, and states that the status termination was "motivated by racial, ethnic, and national-origin discrimination."

This theme — that the Trump administration and Trump's popular deportation agenda are racist — continues throughout the lawsuit and appears to be based on a presumption of racial animus on the part of the Trump administration.

The lawsuit presumes, for instance, that race was a factor when the administration left protections in place for Ukrainians but not for Somalis and Haitians. The complaint makes no mention of Ukraine's ongoing war with a nuclear power which has so far resulted in over 1.2 million casualties.

"The Trump administration has long embraced an anti-immigration agenda, which includes an objective of eliminating or severely restricting access to TPS for non-white, non-European immigrants," the complaint reads, "targeting them with racist rhetoric and attempting to use any mechanism possible to remove them from the country."

One example of supposedly "racist" commentary cited in the lawsuit was Trump's statement during a Nov. 27 press conference that "Somalians have caused a lot of trouble. They're ripping us off for a lot of money."

The lawsuit also referenced Trump's commentary during a Dec. 2 Cabinet meeting, specifically his statement, "I don't care. I don't want them in our country. Their country is no good for a reason. Their country stinks, and we don't want them in our country. I can say that about other countries too."

In addition to characterizing the administration as racist, the lawsuit complains that without the special status, former TPS beneficiaries will lose employment eligibility and benefits, which supposedly amounts to "severe" harm.

DHS did not respond to Blaze News' request for comment.

The Trump administration announced over the weekend that it intends to pursue an appeal at the U.S. Supreme Court to see through its termination of Haiti's TPS, Reuters reported.

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