US Extends Work Permits for Certain Immigrants With Temporary Protected Status

The ‘extension is limited relief’ until lower courts align with a recent Supreme Court decision on the temporary status, officials said.

Parents await interviews for their children at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) district office in New York City on Jan. 29, 2013. John Moore/Getty Images

The Trump administration issued an extension on work permits for hundreds of thousands of immigrants with temporary protected status (TPS) hours before they were set to expire on Friday.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) released updated guidance Friday afternoon, pushing back the termination date of employment authorizations to July 24 for Haitians and July 17 for immigrants from Ethiopia, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, South Sudan, and Burma (also known as Myanmar).

TPS is intended for individuals to remain and work in the United States if their home countries are affected by natural disasters, armed conflict, or other extraordinary conditions. The secretary of Homeland Security has the authority to periodically review conditions in foreign nations to decide whether a protected status is still warranted.

Then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had determined during her tenure in 2025 that conditions in the seven countries no longer met the requirements.

Lawsuits followed.

Two of the cases, known as Mullin v. Doe and Trump v. Miot, were consolidated and went before the Supreme Court. The justices ruled in favor of the Trump administration on June 25 that the federal government can end the TPS designation for Haitians and Syrians.

USCIS stated that “the extension is limited relief until the lower courts align with the U.S. Supreme Court’s favorable decision.”

Work authorizations for about 300,000 Haitian nationals living in the United States were set to expire on Feb. 3, but the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted a stay of the termination the day before.

Similar events played out for the other immigrant groups on TPS.

Burma’s termination was slated for Jan. 26. Three days before, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois issued an order postponing it.

South Sudan’s TPS designation was set to end on Jan. 5 until the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts granted a stay on Dec. 30.

Yemeni nationals on TPS were scheduled to have their permits terminated on May 4. A judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, however, issued an order on May 1 pausing the termination.

The TPS designation for Somalians was set to end on March 17, but four days before, the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts stayed the order.

Syrians with TPS were facing a Nov. 21 permit expiration until the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York issued an order staying the termination two days earlier.

Lastly, for Ethiopian TPS holders, their designation was set to end on Feb. 13. The U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts granted a stay on Jan. 30.

President Donald Trump and other top officials have defended the actions against these immigrant groups and others, saying they’re intended to improve domestic security and help secure jobs for U.S. citizens.

The Trump administration has successfully terminated TPS designations for other countries, including Nepal, Honduras, and Nicaragua. There were an estimated 89,000 immigrants from those countries granted protected status living within the United States.