Immigration attorney reviewing Temporary Protected Status paperwork and country guidance for 2026

Bottom line:

TPS is still active for some countries in 2026, but several designations sit on termination notices or court stays.

Do not trust your old EAD date alone. Check your country page, your filing history, and the latest court order.

TPS changed fast in 2026. Many families now face a dangerous split between people who still have protection and people who only thought they did.

Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, is a temporary humanitarian status for people from certain countries already in the United States. A redesignation can let later arrivals apply by setting newer residence and physical-presence dates. A termination ends TPS on a stated date unless a court blocks it. You have to check both your country's status and your own filing history.

As of April 2026, USCIS has not posted a major wave of brand-new TPS grants issued during calendar year 2026 itself. The main 2026 story is narrower: some earlier redesignations still allow filings, while several countries are moving toward termination or surviving only because a court stepped in.

Who is newly protected in 2026

Lebanon is the clearest example. TPS for Lebanon remains designated through May 27, 2026. The registration period runs from Nov. 27, 2024 through May 27, 2026. USCIS says applicants must show continuous residence in the United States since Oct. 16, 2024 and continuous physical presence since Nov. 27, 2024. For Lebanese nationals who were already here by those dates and have not filed yet, 2026 is still an active filing year.

Yemen also remained open for first-time filings during part of 2026, but only briefly. Yemen's current redesignation is effective Sept. 4, 2024. USCIS says the initial registration period for people who did not already have TPS ran from July 10, 2024 through March 3, 2026. DHS then published a termination notice in March 2026, and USCIS now says TPS benefits under Yemen's designation end May 4, 2026.

Ukraine is designated through Oct. 19, 2026. Sudan is also covered through Oct. 19, 2026, and the USCIS page includes EAD auto-extension language through April 19, 2026. El Salvador also remains extended, but that 2025 notice focused on re-registration for current beneficiaries, not a broad new initial filing group.

Who just lost TPS or is about to

Yemen is the sharpest cliff. DHS published the termination notice on March 3, 2026, and USCIS says TPS benefits under Yemen end May 4, 2026. USCIS also lists EAD auto-extension only through May 4, 2026. If your work card shows a later date from an older notice, or you are relying on employer assumptions instead of the current USCIS page, that creates real risk.

Somalia was also hit in 2026. DHS published a termination notice on Jan. 14, 2026, and USCIS says Somalia's TPS and related benefits were slated to terminate on March 17, 2026. USCIS also says a federal judge stayed that termination on March 13, 2026. Somali TPS holders are not in the clear, but they are not in the same position as someone whose TPS already ended with no stay.

Haiti, Ethiopia, Burma, and South Sudan fall into a similar court-fight category. USCIS says Haiti was slated to terminate Feb. 3, 2026, Ethiopia Feb. 13, 2026, Burma Jan. 26, 2026, and South Sudan Jan. 5, 2026. USCIS also says a federal court stayed or postponed each of those terminations. That is better than an immediate cutoff, but it is not the same as a fresh extension.

Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua are in a harsher position. Their TPS terminations were announced in 2025. USCIS says a district court vacated those termination decisions on Dec. 31, 2025, but the Ninth Circuit stayed that district court order on Feb. 9, 2026. People from those countries may have heard that TPS came back, then found themselves exposed again.

Syria and Venezuela need special attention. Syria remains part of the active TPS litigation picture. Venezuela is split. USCIS says the 2023 Venezuela TPS designation was allowed to terminate immediately by the Supreme Court on Oct. 3, 2025, but some people who re-registered under the Jan. 17, 2025 extension and received TPS-related documents with Oct. 2, 2026 expiration dates on or before Feb. 5, 2025 remain authorized through Oct. 2, 2026 under a court order. USCIS also says the separate 2021 Venezuela designation was terminated effective Nov. 7, 2025.

The exposure trap

The biggest TPS mistake in 2026 is assuming your country's name on a USCIS page means you personally still have protection. It does not. Three traps keep pulling people under.

Trap 1: Redesignation creates winners and losers

A redesignation is not a free ride for everyone from a given country. DHS sets new cutoff dates for continuous residence and continuous physical presence, and it opens a new registration period. If you fit the newer residence date and filed during the window, you may be covered. If you entered the U.S. after that cutoff, or if you qualified but never filed before the window closed, you may have no TPS at all, even though people from your country are still getting benefits and media coverage still describes the country as protected. That gap is where most bad advice lives. Clients hear that Haiti, Venezuela, or Yemen still have TPS and assume their own case is fine. The filing history is what controls, not the country name.

Trap 2: EAD and document expiration dates mislead

Employment Authorization Document expiration dates on the card itself can lag behind what USCIS actually considers valid. Some groups are relying on EAD auto-extension language that ended months ago. Some are holding EADs with later printed dates that no longer control because a termination took effect. Venezuela is the sharpest example. Different subsets of Venezuelan TPS holders now have different answers depending on which designation they held, whether they re-registered during the January 2025 window, and when their documents were issued. One household can have two adults from Venezuela with two different answers. Yemen shows the same problem in a different form: the redesignation registration window ran into March 2026, but the whole program is now set to end May 4, 2026, and the EAD auto-extension only runs through that same day.

Trap 3: Court orders move fast

At least six countries now have TPS status that exists only because a court stepped in: Haiti, Somalia, Ethiopia, Burma, South Sudan, and Syria. Court orders can be narrowed, paused on appeal, or lifted outright. The Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua pattern is a warning. A district court vacated those terminations on Dec. 31, 2025, then the Ninth Circuit stayed that order on Feb. 9, 2026. People from those countries were told TPS came back, then discovered weeks later that they were exposed again. Do not make travel, employment, or filing decisions based on a headline, a Facebook post, or an employer's HR guess. Court orders change the picture faster than USCIS can update its country pages.

What to do right now

  • File early if your registration window is still open. Lebanon and some earlier redesignations still allow first-time filings in 2026. Waiting to the last day is no longer a safe strategy. If the program gets terminated before your window closes, late filings can be thrown out.
  • Pull your own USCIS case and EAD records now. Log into your myUSCIS account, print receipts, screenshot approval notices, and save copies of every Federal Register notice that applied to you. If a termination fight goes to court, the record you built before the litigation started is what protects you.
  • Keep proof of residence and physical presence organized. Leases, utility bills, pay stubs, tax transcripts, medical records, and school records are all useful. Organize them by month for the full continuous residence period. Do not wait until USCIS sends a Request for Evidence.
  • Do not rely on the expiration date printed on your work card alone. Check the country-specific USCIS TPS page and the matching Federal Register notice. If your employer is using an expiration date that USCIS has since moved, you need a letter from counsel explaining the current rule.
  • Treat unstable protection as unstable. If your country has both a termination notice and a court order, assume the situation can reverse. Get case-specific advice before traveling outside the U.S., changing employers, or missing a renewal deadline.
  • Look at parallel forms of relief. Asylum, family-based petitions, SIJS, VAWA, U status, and cancellation of removal may be open to you. Some of these options have their own one-year or filing-posture deadlines. Running both tracks at once is often the safest approach when TPS is under threat.
  • Do not travel on advance parole without a fresh consultation. TPS-based advance parole has been a moving target, and the rules for re-entry after a termination or stay can be different from what they were a year ago. A single wrong trip can knock out other immigration options.

If TPS is part of your own case or a family member's case, do not guess from a news story or a friend's approval letter. Get a same-week review of your TPS status, work authorization, filing windows, and backup options from an immigration attorney who knows how the current court orders and terminations actually apply to your facts.

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