Boston, Massachusetts - A federal judge blocked President Donald Trump's administration from ending the legal protections that allow more than 5,000 Ethiopians to live and work in the US.

Boston District Judge Brian Murphy on Wednesday blocked the Department of Homeland Security from ending the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation for Ethiopian refugees.

TPS protections allow migrants to work and live in the US and are provided to people whose country of origin is unsafe to return to because of natural disaster, armed conflict, or the threat of persecution.

More than 5,000 Ethiopian migrants were granted TPS under the Biden administration in 2022. Their status was extended in 2024, but is now under threat as the Trump administration seeks to revoke the TPS of 13 countries.

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Murphy argued in the ruling that Trump's executive powers do not overwrite Congress, and as a result the DHS' decision in December 2025 to end Ethiopia's TPS is unlawful.

"The will of the President does not supersede that of Congress," Murphy wrote in the ruling. "Presidential whims do not and cannot supplant agencies' statutory obligations."

"Yet, in this case, Defendants have disregarded both that foundational principle and the statutory scheme enacted by Congress."

The Trump administration's attempts to repeal TPS for 13 different nations have repeatedly hit legal roadblocks. In separate March rulings, Trump was also blocked from stripping Somalis and Haitians of these same protections.

In a statement to CBS News, the DHS attacked Murphy's ruling as "the latest example of judicial activists trying to prevent President Trump from restoring integrity to America's legal immigration system."

"Temporary means temporary. Country conditions – including armed conflicts – in Ethiopia have improved to the point that it no longer meets the law's requirement for [TPS]," the DHS said.