This week, the Trump administration said that it will terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Somalis living in the United States, giving thousands of people a mere two months to leave the country or face deportation.
The announcement comes on the heels of largescale immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota, the state with the largest population of Somali residents.
TPS is a temporary immigration status provided to nationals of specifically designated countries that are confronting an ongoing armed conflict, environmental disaster, or extraordinary and temporary conditions. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claimed that Somalia no longer qualified for the designation, even though the State Department currently warns U.S. citizens not to visit the African country due to high rates of crime, terrorism, kidnapping, and civil unrest.
This fact sheet from the American Immigration Council provides an overview of TPS, how countries are designated, and which countries have TPS as of November 2025.
Read more: Temporary Protected Status (TPS): An Overview |
When President Trump took office in January 2025, there were roughly 40,000 people being held in immigration detention. By the start of December, that number had risen by almost 75 percent, with nearly 66,000 people held in immigration detention across the United States and the system reportedly capable of holding 70,000 people on any given day — the highest level in history.
Yet this is just the start for the Trump administration, which, according to leaked plans, originally hoped to have nearly 108,000 immigration detention beds online by January 2026.
This new report from the American Immigration Council documents the historic expansion of detention under the Trump administration. It details not only the policy changes that have led to ICE detention reaching the highest level on record, but also their impact on the individuals who have found themselves locked into it.
Read more: Immigration Detention Expansion in Trump’s Second Term |
“ICE, for its enforcement mechanisms and enforcement tactics, received roughly $30 billion dollars in funding [from Congress]. That influx of cash has really changed the tactics and therefore changed the profile of those individuals that are going to be subject to arrest and potential removal." |
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