Office of the
Illinois Attorney General
Kwame Raoul

Chicago – Attorney General Kwame Raoul, as part of a coalition of 16 attorneys general, today opposed the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) unlawful and baseless attempt to strip Somalia’s Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation.

Raoul and the coalition filed an amicus brief in African Communities Together v. Noem in support of a challenge to the Trump administration’s termination of the TPS designation. The brief highlights the humanitarian and economic harm that would result from ending TPS protections for Somali immigrants and urges the court to postpone the revocation. 

“TPS protects the health and safety of Somali immigrants who contribute to our state and national economies,” Raoul said. “I will continue to work with my colleagues to urge for the extension of these protections.”

TPS is a humanitarian immigration status created by Congress to protect foreign nationals who cannot safely return to their home country because of war, natural disaster or other extraordinary conditions. TPS allows recipients to live and work in the United States as long as their home country has a TPS designation. Somalia was first designated for TPS in 1991 by Acting Attorney General William Barr. Civil war has raged in Somalia for the ensuing 35 years, resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths, children being forced into combat, extrajudicial killings, sexual and gender-based violence, and other human rights abuses. Given the ongoing violence and suffering, Somalia’s TPS designation has continually been in place since 1991. 

In November 2025, President Trump posted on social media that he was “hereby terminating, effective immediately, the Temporary Protected Status (TPS Program) for Somalis in Minnesota...” Since then, President Trump has repeatedly launched racist attacks against Somali immigrants, calling them “garbage” and “stupid people” with “low IQs” “from a crooked country, disgusting country, one of the worst countries in the world.” In January 2026, Kristi Noem, then DHS Secretary, announced she was terminating Somalia’s TPS designation in part because “permitting Somali nationals to remain temporarily in the United States would be contrary to the national interest of the United States.” 

The Trump administration attempted to abruptly terminate TPS for Somalia even as the U.S. State Department continues to classify the nation as “Level 4: Do Not Travel” country, its highest risk designation. The department advises that Americans should not travel to Somalia “due to crime, terrorism, civil unrest, health, kidnapping, piracy and lack of availability of routine consular services,” noting “violent crime is common throughout Somalia, including kidnapping and murder,” “illegal roadblocks are widespread,” and “terrorists continue to plot kidnappings, bombings, and other attacks” and “may attack with little or no warning.” 

As of January 2026, there were reportedly 2,471 Somali nationals in the United States under TPS and another 1,383 with pending applications. Raoul and the attorneys general warn that Somali TPS holders living in their states, and the states themselves, will be profoundly harmed if the termination is not postponed. The attorneys general argue that termination of TPS for Somalis would separate families, damage economies, reduce workforces, increase health care costs, and harm public health and safety. The attorneys general are urging the court to postpone this attempted TPS revocation to prevent their states and residents of those states from suffering irreparable harm. 

The brief is Raoul’s most recent effort to preserve TPS for foreign nationals from countries that are experiencing humanitarian crises. Earlier this month, Raoul co-led a coalition of attorneys general asking the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold TPS designations for Haiti and Syria. Raoul and the coalition filed an amicus brief in Trump v. Miot and Mullin v. Doe in support of a challenge to the Trump administration’s termination of these TPS designations. Raoul has also joined with other state attorneys general to defend TPS designations for Honduran, Nepali, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan nationals.

Joining Attorney General Raoul in filing the brief are the attorneys general of California, New York, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Vermont and Washington.