The U.S. government is revoking the legal status of more than 1,000 immigrants from Somalia, raising the specter of deportation for a community often assailed by President Trump.

A Department of Homeland Security official said the Trump administration had decided to terminate Somalia’s Temporary Protected Status program, which allows beneficiaries to live and work in the U.S. without fear of deportation. 

Nationals of Somalia enrolled in the TPS program are now set to lose their legal status and work permits on March 17. The DHS official said roughly 2,500 Somali immigrants with TPS or pending applications are expected to be affected by the termination. A notice by the federal government said 1,082 Somalis were enrolled in TPS as of Dec. 8 and another 1,383 had applied for the program.

The Trump administration has urged TPS holders whose status will lapse to self-deport, warning that they will be found, arrested and deported if they fail to do so.

“Temporary means temporary. Country conditions in Somalia have improved to the point that it no longer meets the law’s requirement for Temporary Protected Status,” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement. “Further, allowing Somali nationals to remain temporarily in the United States is contrary to our national interests. We are putting Americans first.”

The move had been previewed last year by Mr. Trump, who has focused intensely on members of the Somali community, often describing them in derogatory terms. In a Cabinet meeting in December, Mr. Trump referred to people from Somalia as “garbage,” claiming they “contribute nothing.”

“I don’t want them in our country. I’ll be honest with you,” Mr. Trump said. “Their country’s no good for a reason. Their country stinks.” 

Mr. Trump and his aides have focused particularly on Minnesota, home to the largest community of Somali immigrants and Somali-Americans. Citing a massive fraud scandal in the state implicating members of the Somali community, the administration has deployed thousands of federal immigration agents to the Minneapolis area.

The federal deployment has sparked clashes and protests, especially after the Jan. 7 killing of Renee Nicole Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer.

TPS dates back to 1990, when Congress created the policy to offer a temporary safe haven to foreigners from countries facing an armed conflict, environmental disaster or another emergency that makes their return unsafe.

The second Trump administration has sought to end most TPS programs, which were dramatically expanded under former President Joe Biden. Mr. Trump’s administration has moved to revoke the legal status of hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, Myanmar, South Sudan, Syria and Venezuela.

Pro-immigrant advocates have strongly denounced the administration’s actions, saying they punish people from crisis-stricken countries who have been living and working in the U.S. for years and, in some cases, decades.

But Trump administration officials have said the Democratic administration extended TPS policies too often, despite the policy’s temporary nature. It has also argued conditions in some of the affected countries have improved or that it’s not in the national interest to renew protections for their nationals, criticizing TPS as a magnet for illegal immigration.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify that the decision affects roughly 2,500 Somali immigrants with TPS or pending applications.