BOSTON — Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell has found another Trump policy to sue over. This time it's Somali Temporary Protected Status — a designation the federal government first granted in September 1991 and has renewed continuously for nearly thirty-five years.
Campbell announced the fight in a post on her official Facebook page — not X, the platform she left last year — declaring "NEW: I'm fighting against Trump's unlawful attempt to strip Somali immigrants of Temporary Protected Status."
The details of her involvement, however, are unclear.
The lawsuit was already filed — by somebody else
Back in March, a group of Somali TPS holders — represented by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Muslim Advocates, and the Haitian Bridge Alliance — filed a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's termination of Somalia TPS in federal court in Boston. U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs granted an emergency stay on March 13, more than a month before Campbell's post. The case is African Communities Together v. Noem, No. 26-cv-11201.
Campbell's office is not listed as a plaintiff. Her name does not appear on any publicly-announced amicus brief in the Somalia case. Her most recent TPS action was three days before the post, when she co-led a 19-state amicus urging the Supreme Court to preserve TPS for Haitians and Syrians — a different country, a different case, and not this case.
Her office has not clarified what specific legal action, if any, she has taken in this particular case.
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The definition of 'Temporary'
Somalia's TPS designation was first issued on September 16, 1991, after the country collapsed into civil war following the fall of the Siad Barre regime. It has been renewed, and renewed, and renewed again, by Republican and Democratic administrations alike. The current cohort includes roughly 1,100 to 2,400 Somali TPS holders nationally, some of whom arrived as children and now have grandchildren.
When DHS Secretary Kristi Noem announced the termination on January 13, with a March 17 effective date, she cited improving conditions in Somalia and a federal immigration system buckling under the weight of decades of "temporary" designations that never ended. Campbell, in her post, accused Trump of having "spewed hatred and misinformation about our Somali community."
The question of whether a thirty-five-year designation still qualifies as "temporary" has been debated across multiple administrations.
A growing legal portfolio
The announcement is the latest in a long string of challenges Campbell's office has filed or supported against the Trump administration. Her office began filing suits against the Trump administration almost immediately after inauguration, and by the end of the first year she had led a 22-state coalition on federal grant freezes. Her office's running total is now approaching fifty, depending on who's counting.
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Campbell has also asked the Massachusetts Legislature for an additional $2.7 million to hire seventeen additional staff specifically to litigate against the federal government. She has, at the same time, refused to audit the very Legislature that writes her budget — despite a ballot question in which Massachusetts voters demanded exactly that.
The Legislature writes the AG's budget.
The post itself
Campbell wrote: "I'm fighting against Trump's unlawful attempt to strip Somali immigrants of Temporary Protected Status. Trump has spewed hatred and misinformation about our Somali community. I know TPS holders contribute to Massachusetts every day. I'll stand up for the law and against this hate."
The announcement was made via social media rather than through an official press release or press conference.
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