Ukraine and Sudan TPS Holders Keep Protection, but Paperwork Questions Remain

For Ukrainian and Sudanese immigrants enrolled in Temporary Protected Status, the immediate news is that they keep their protection from deportation. The unfinished business is how to prove their continuing right to work when the government’s existing paperwork instructions reach their endpoint. A promise of protection matters enormously. So does being able to show an employer documents that keep a paycheck coming.

The Department of Homeland Security told CBS News on Sunday, October 18, that beneficiaries of both programs would “retain protection” until final decisions are announced. Their existing designation periods were scheduled to end October 19, 2026. DHS’s assurance means that date is not an announced cutoff after which all enrolled beneficiaries suddenly become deportable. But the department supplied neither a new fixed end date nor a timetable for deciding either program’s future. Final decisions, it said, would “be made at the appropriate time.” ¹

The scale is substantial, even without a newly verified headcount. CBS reported that, as of March 2025, more than 100,000 Ukrainians and roughly 1,800 Sudanese nationals held TPS. Those are dated figures, not an October 2026 census. ¹

The continuation also stands apart from the administration’s wider retreat from TPS. According to CBS, it has revoked protection for more than one million immigrants from over a dozen countries, including Afghanistan, Haiti and Venezuela. Officials argue that the temporary program has been extended too often and encourages illegal immigration. El Salvador’s beneficiaries also retained protection pending a final announcement after their program approached its endpoint last month. ¹

Congress created TPS in 1990 to offer temporary protection to eligible people whose countries face armed conflict, disasters or other conditions making return unsafe. It can cover people who entered with lawful status and those who did not. Eligible stateless people who last habitually resided in a designated country can qualify, too. This is protection for people who meet the program’s requirements, not a blanket benefit for everyone of a particular nationality. ^{1 31}

Ukraine’s initial designation took effect April 19, 2022, after Russia’s full-scale invasion. Sudan’s dates to November 4, 1997, on the grounds of armed conflict and extraordinary and temporary conditions. Their different histories have brought them to the same unresolved administrative deadline. ^{2 3}

The distinction now carrying the most practical weight is between status, work authorization and evidence of that authorization. The TPS statute protects beneficiaries against removal while their status is in effect and makes work authorization effective throughout that period. An Employment Authorization Document, or EAD, is evidence of that right. Its printed expiration date is not interchangeable with the duration of the underlying protection. ³¹

That is why an old document-expiration instruction cannot, by itself, establish that DHS’s newer assurance has vanished. Equally, the assurance does not automatically tell an employer what new expiration date to enter in a verification system.

The January 17, 2025 Federal Register notices extended both countries’ designations for 18 months, from April 20, 2025 through October 19, 2026. Existing eligible beneficiaries had to re-register between January 17 and March 18, 2025. That past 60-day application window was a requirement for beneficiaries—not the government’s separate deadline for reviewing country conditions. The notices warned that improper re-registration could lead to withdrawal of an individual’s TPS after the appropriate procedures. ^{2 3}

Those notices offered eligible people who re-registered and applied new work cards valid through October 19, 2026. But their automatic extensions of certain older cards ran only through April 19, 2026. For Ukraine, the earlier extension covered A12 or C19 cards with specified 2023 or 2025 expiration dates; Sudan’s covered the corresponding categories and nine listed dates from 2017 through 2025. Neither was an indefinite extension of every expired permit. ^{2 3}

The notices also recognized that processing delays could leave people waiting for replacement cards. Covered TPS and related work-card applications already pending on January 17, 2025 did not have to be filed again; approval would provide status or a card through October 19, 2026, as applicable. The possibility of a gap in documentation was therefore built into the government’s own account of administering the programs. ^{2 3}

Later instructions supplied additional ways to prove authorization, but their verified endpoints still stop at October 19. Ukraine’s September 3 guidance allowed a qualifying card expiring on or after April 20, 2026 and before October 19, 2026, together with its USCIS extension notice, as List A proof of identity and continued employment authorization through October 19. ²¹

Employers were instructed to enter October 19, 2026 in the expiration fields in Sections 1 and 2 of Form I-9, add an explanatory note, and use that date in E-Verify. Sudan’s August guidance likewise described extensions through October 19 for recipients who remained eligible, still had a pending TPS-based work-card application and had not received their renewal card. These were specific documentation arrangements, not instructions establishing a later universal validity date. ^{21 23}

Separate renewal-filing rules distinguish eligible applications filed before October 30, 2025 from later filings. They should not be collapsed into a promise that every Ukrainian or Sudanese beneficiary receives a 540-day extension beyond October 19, 2026. The applicable documents and filing history matter. ^{24 47}

Advocates argue that a missed government review deadline independently triggered six more months of TPS. Their calculation puts the deadline on August 20, treats the extension as triggered on August 21, and carries protection through April 19, 2027. The Ukraine Immigration Task Force’s October 16 update described a theoretical extension by operation of law while acknowledging that implementation guidance had not followed. DHS has not confirmed that duration or endpoint. ^{37 38 39}

That legal position should not be confused with an announced six-month DHS extension. Nor does the absence of a published termination notice prove every fact about whether an internal determination occurred. The narrower established point is consequential enough: DHS says enrolled beneficiaries retain protection while final decisions remain unannounced. ¹

A legislative proposal would provide Ukrainians a much longer, defined period, but it has not become law. Senator Richard Blumenthal introduced S. 5490 on September 23, with fellow Democrat Chris Coons and Republicans Lisa Murkowski and Bill Cassidy as original cosponsors. The latest supplied legislative action is referral to the Senate Judiciary Committee that day. ^{12 13 14}

The bill would designate Ukraine for TPS from October 20, 2026 through July 1, 2029 and require decisions on covered protection and employment-authorization applications within 90 days of receipt. Eligible Ukrainian nationals and stateless former residents would have to meet residence, physical-presence, admission and TPS requirements and register. If enacted after October 20, it would apply retroactively to that date and protect otherwise eligible people against accruing unlawful presence. It also contains an emergency-travel consent provision. All of these remain proposals. ¹²

A separate September 22 appeal sought an 18-month administrative extension and redesignation for Ukraine; that request is not the longer period written into the bill. Neither route resolves Sudan’s pending decision. And TPS itself does not guarantee permanent residence: if a designation eventually ends, the published notices say beneficiaries return to a still-valid prior status or another still-valid status obtained during TPS, if they have one. ^{15 2 3}