The United States’ decision to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Somali immigrants in March has ignited strong reactions across the country. In states such as Minnesota, home to one of the largest Somali communities in the US, the announcement has triggered fear, uncertainty, and political outrage. For families who have built lives over decades, the prospect of losing legal protection is deeply unsettling. For political leaders and activists, the decision has become another flashpoint in a polarized immigration debate.

Yet beyond the emotional responses and charged rhetoric lies a deeper issue that the United States can no longer afford to avoid: the erosion of honesty, clarity, and legality in its immigration system. The end of Somalia’s TPS designation is not simply a bureaucratic move or a political gesture. It is a test of whether the US is willing to enforce its own laws as written and confront the long-term consequences of policies that were never meant to be permanent.

Temporary Protected Status was created by Congress in 1990 as a humanitarian safeguard. Its purpose was narrow and specific: to provide short-term protection to foreign nationals who could not safely return to their home countries due to extraordinary and temporary conditions such as armed conflict, environmental disasters, or sudden political collapse. The program was designed to be reviewed regularly and terminated once those conditions no longer met the statutory threshold. It was never intended to serve as a backdoor to permanent residency or citizenship.

Over time, however, TPS has drifted far from its original mandate. What began as an emergency measure has, in several cases, evolved into a de facto permanent status. Somalia illustrates this drift more clearly than almost any other country. It was first designated for TPS in 1991, at a moment when the Somali state had collapsed........

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