DHS Says Ukrainians and Sudanese 'Retain Protection' as TPS Deadline Passes With No Final Decision

The Department of Homeland Security let a TPS deadline lapse today, Oct. 19, without ending or extending the program for Ukrainians and Sudanese.

Temporary Protected Status was scheduled to expire today for about 101,000 Ukrainians and 1,800 Sudanese. In a written statement, DHS said an announcement "will be made at the appropriate time." Until then, the department said, those covered "retain protection."

DHS did not say how long that interim protection lasts or when a final decision is coming.

It also did not answer a question about work permits. TPS generally allows holders to work while protections remain in effect.

A repeat of the El Salvador playbook

This is the second time in about six weeks that the administration has handled a deadline this way. Roughly a month ago, it kept protections in place for nearly 200,000 Salvadorans whose TPS was set to expire Sept. 9. DHS used the same "appropriate time" language then and said Salvadorans could keep living and working in the U.S. in the meantime.

That is a change in practice. The administration has already terminated TPS for more than 1 million people from 13 countries, including Venezuela, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Afghanistan and Syria.

So the pattern is no longer simply termination. For El Salvador, Ukraine and Sudan, the answer so far is no answer.

How the Ukraine and Sudan designations got here

Ukraine was first designated for TPS in April 2022, two months after Russia's full-scale invasion. The Biden administration extended it, most recently in January 2025, when DHS authorized another 18 months through October 2026.

Sudan's designation dates to 1997. Successive administrations have renewed it because of armed conflict and political instability there.

Congress created TPS in 1990 to prevent deportations to countries suffering natural disasters or civil strife. It lets people already in the U.S. stay and work for renewable periods if the homeland security secretary determines conditions at home are unsafe. It does not offer a path to permanent residency.

A program written as temporary has covered Sudanese for 29 years and Ukrainians for more than four. Congress has not acted to change that.

What advocates and lawmakers are saying

Activists and a bipartisan group of lawmakers had warned about today's deadline. They argue conditions remain unsafe in Ukraine because of the war with Russia.

Yuriy Boyechko, CEO of Hope For Ukraine, a nonprofit that provides humanitarian aid in Ukraine and helps resettle newcomers in the U.S., called the DHS announcement "last-minute patches." He described it as a "bandage that has been placed on a wound that does not solve the real issue."

"It's time for U.S. to come up with some normal path to permanent residency for all these people," Boyechko said. He stressed that they cannot safely return to Ukraine.

DHS has not publicly responded to that argument beyond its written statement. It has not said what criteria it will apply to the Ukraine and Sudan designations or whether it will treat them differently from the countries already terminated.

The political backdrop

The non-decision comes two weeks before the Nov. 3 midterm elections, when the administration's hard-line immigration policies will face voters. No official has linked the timing of the DHS statement to the election.

The open-ended language leaves a practical problem for the roughly 103,000 people involved. Employers, landlords and families have no date to plan around. DHS has set no deadline for its own announcement, and the Ukrainian and Sudanese TPS holders will wait on it with no end date in sight.