By Kazembe Batts
“After reviewing country conditions and consulting with appropriate U.S. Government agencies, the Secretary determined that Ethiopia no longer continues to meet the conditions for the designation for Temporary Protected Status,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a notice posted in the Federal Register on Friday, December 12th.

The Trump administration has now added Ethiopians to the list of ethnic Black people, like Haitians, Somalians, and South Sudanese, to be stopped, profiled, and disappeared into the sprawling $180 billion “Big Beautiful Bill” budget allocated for such purposes. Trump has facilitated the removal of TPS for migrants from other non-majority Black countries, including Myanmar, Syria, and Venezuela, but his vision for America as it approaches its 250th anniversary is apparently as white or Northern European as possible.

Since the 1980’s before TPS started in 1990, an Ethiopian community developed in Washington, DC. Now known as Little Ethiopia, the business and cultural neighborhood is part of the Shaw community of Washington, D.C., located around 9th and U Street Northwest. It is known for its concentration of Ethiopian businesses and people. Large numbers of Ethiopians also live in Virginia and Maryland.

Ethiopia is Africa’s oldest independent state and the second most populous country. It is the seat of the African Union (AU) and an influential nation in the “Horn of Africa”. The United States is its largest bilateral donor. The country has pursued parallel partnerships with U.S. strategic competitors, most notably China, its top source of foreign investment and largest trading partner.

Ethiopia was the largest contributor of United Nations (U.N.) peacekeeping troops from 2016 until 2021. Unfortunately, civil war erupted, dividing the country and its security forces along ethnic lines. Ethiopia, while developing especially in Addis Ababa, is still an underdeveloped country in the periphery of the capital. The national government is still at war with the Tigray Defense Forces and the Oromo Liberation Army.

Also, relations with neighboring Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia, and Egypt are tenuous. Egypt has even threatened war over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). On the positive side, Ethiopia inaugurated the $5 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), constructed without Western aid, on September 9th, causing much national pride in the accomplishment.

Theoretically Ethiopians, many who have gained citizenship, living in the DC and surrounding areas should not be harassed by the new enforcement but the Supreme Court has ruled in a recent 6-3 vote in the case known as Vasquez Perdomo v. Noem, the Supreme Court granted an emergency request from the Trump administration and temporarily halted a LA judge’s order that barred “roving patrols” from snatching people off California streets and questioning them based on how they look, what language they speak, what work they do, or even where they happen to be.

Both a Los Angeles federal court and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled that these actions amounted to illegal racial profiling. The Supreme Court then issued a brief, unsigned order that overturns those decisions. This gives immigration agents a “green light” to once again stop anyone they suspect to be here illegally—even if a central reason for the stop was race. This endorses ICE and Border Patrol targeting any Latinos they observe in Los Angeles speaking Spanish or working in low-income jobs and then demanding their papers.

This legally allowed profiling makes traversing the public space a threat to anyone who is not entitled to white skinned privilege. That includes Ethiopians, Somalis, Haitians, and many more. Make America Great Again is the motto and policy of the current administration.

When was that, many asked? African people from the biblically mentioned Ethiopia to the first free independent republic of Haiti, which won its independence in 1804, and all in between, are being lined up to be deported. Maybe to a gulag in El Salvador without trial or notice. What, you don’t think that is possible? Stay aware and informed. This is happening in real time.