Chicago, January 24, 2026 – A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from terminating temporary deportation protections for nearly 4,000 immigrants from Burma, ruling that the government failed to provide a legitimate justification for ending the program.
U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly issued the emergency order Friday, just days before the protections were set to expire Monday. The ruling marks an early legal setback for the administration’s sweeping effort to dismantle Temporary Protected Status programs across multiple countries.
In a sharply worded opinion, Kennelly concluded that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s decision to end protections for Burmese nationals “lacked a genuine basis” and appeared driven by “the Secretary’s broader goal of curtailing immigration and eliminating TPS generally, not on her evaluation of changed conditions in Burma.”
The judge found it “more plausible” that the administration terminated the program without actually reviewing conditions in the war-torn Southeast Asian nation, where a military junta has ruled since a violent 2021 coup.
The case, Aung Doe v. Noem, was filed in December by six Burmese immigrants proceeding under pseudonyms, represented by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund and the International Refugee Assistance Project. The lawsuit seeks to represent all Burmese TPS holders nationwide.
Among the plaintiffs is Nina, a 33-year-old medical professional who came to the United States on a Fulbright scholarship shortly after the coup. She now fears that returning to Burma would mean detention and interrogation by military authorities.
“There are people being deported back to Myanmar this year and then some of them are sent to the interrogation camp,” Nina said in an interview with Newsweek. “Many medical professionals are against the military, so they don’t like someone who is coming back from the U.S., and they will just capture [me].”
Nina, who has married a U.S. citizen and has a young child, said losing her protected status would tear her family apart. Her participation in pro-democracy protests and donations to displaced people in Burma have made her a potential target of the military regime.
The Trump administration announced Nov. 25 that it was ending TPS for Burma, citing what Noem described as “notable progress in governance and stability,” including plans for elections and ceasefire agreements.
But human rights groups, the United Nations and the U.S. State Department’s own reports paint a starkly different picture. The State Department has documented “significant human rights issues” in Burma, and international observers have widely condemned the military’s planned elections as a sham.
“This move to terminate TPS for Burma is part of a broader plan to completely end TPS, as the administration slams the door shut on non-white immigrants,” said Dinesh McCoy, a staff attorney at AALDEF. “TPS should end only when the evidence supports improved conditions in Burma.”
The Temporary Protected Status program allows people from countries experiencing armed conflict, natural disasters or other extraordinary conditions to live and work legally in the United States. The protections are meant to be temporary but have been extended repeatedly for some countries over many years.
Since taking office, President Trump has pursued an aggressive immigration crackdown, including attempts to end TPS designations for Venezuela, Syria, Haiti, South Sudan and other nations. Burma was the first country for which the administration cited its travel ban as justification for terminating protections.
For many Burmese immigrants, the threat of deportation creates an impossible choice. San, a public health worker in her 30s who asked to be identified by a pseudonym, said she has built a career and community in the United States over several years.
“Our people are resilient, I could probably find something [else], but at the same time, I’ve built so many connections and life here, and so I think about it sometimes and it’s really kind of heartbreaking,” San told Newsweek.
Judge Kennelly has scheduled a hearing for Feb. 6 to consider the case further. The Trump administration did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the ruling.
The decision adds to a growing list of court orders that have temporarily halted the administration’s immigration enforcement actions, though legal experts say the cases could take months or years to resolve fully.
For now, the roughly 4,000 Burmese immigrants with TPS can remain in the country legally while the lawsuit proceeds.
“I know that it is not safe for him to go with me back to Myanmar, because they targeted foreigners too,” Nina said of her American husband. “Also, my baby is too young to live back in Myanmar, especially if I’m being captured.”
