Hundreds of thousands of immigrants with temporary protected status from seven countries, including Haiti and Syria, had their work authorization extended Friday, hours before expiration.
Employment authorization for Haitians was extended two weeks, while authorization for those from Syria, Ethiopia, Somalia, Yemen, South Sudan and Myanmar was extended one week.
The Department of Homeland Security’s Citizenship and Immigration Services extended employment authorization for TPS holders, which allows people fleeing natural disasters, war or persecution in their home countries to live and work legally in the U.S.
With that authorization initially set to expire Friday, Haitian and Syrian communities across the country protested the possible loss of legal sanctuary.
The looming lapse in work authorization came after the Supreme Court let the Trump administration move forward with canceling protection for roughly 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians.
That was after a June ruling that federal courts generally cannot review the Department of Homeland Security’s decision to terminate a country’s TPS designation.
What was extended Friday was the validity of employment authorization documents for Form I-9 and E-Verify purposes — not the underlying TPS designations themselves, which remain in legal limbo pending district court orders expected at the end of July.
If Citizenship and Immigration Services lets TPS expire, status holders must seek alternative legal status to remain employed.
Some employers had already begun terminating TPS holders, according to labor organizations and unions.
The immigrants would also be at risk of deportation.
An earlier placeholder had employment authorization documents expiring July 1, then extended to this past Friday and now to this coming Friday and July 24.
The Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has also targeted TPS designations for Afghanistan, Cameroon, Honduras, Nicaragua, Nepal and Venezuela, with the administration moving to terminate protection for all 13 countries whose designations came up for review since 2025.
