Ukraine and Sudan TPS Reach Their Oct. 19 End Date With No DHS Decision, and the Statute Says Silence Means Six More Months

Temporary Protected Status for Ukraine and Sudan is scheduled to end on Oct. 19, 2026, and the Department of Homeland Security still has not published a decision on whether to extend or terminate either designation. That silence matters because the TPS statute required DHS to decide at least 60 days before the end date, and it says that when no timely decision is made, the designation is automatically extended for six months, which would carry both countries to April 19, 2027. For the roughly 105,600 beneficiaries DHS estimated in January 2025 were eligible to keep the two designations, the question nine days out is no longer only what DHS will decide, but whether the agency will acknowledge what the law may already have done.

The practical stakes land on Oct. 20. Employers checking work authorization need a document to rely on, and as of Oct. 10 there is none that points past Oct. 19. A worker could be legally protected under the statute and still lose a job because nothing on paper says so.

Designation	Current period	Statutory decision deadline	Estimated beneficiaries eligible to re-register	End date if the 6-month automatic extension applies
Ukraine	April 20, 2025 to Oct. 19, 2026	Aug. 20, 2026	About 103,700	April 19, 2027
Sudan	April 20, 2025 to Oct. 19, 2026	Aug. 20, 2026	About 1,900	April 19, 2027

Sources: DHS Federal Register notices extending the Ukraine and Sudan TPS designations, Jan. 17, 2025 (beneficiary figures are DHS estimates as of that date); deadline and extended end date are Immigration Analytics calculations under INA 244(b)(3).

A deadline that passed in August

Both designations were last extended by notices published on Jan. 17, 2025, in the final days of the Biden administration. Each ran 18 months, from April 20, 2025, through Oct. 19, 2026. Under section 244(b)(3)(A) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the DHS Secretary must review country conditions “at least 60 days before” a designation ends and publish the result in the Federal Register. Counting back from Oct. 19, that deadline fell on Aug. 20, 2026.

A search of the Federal Register on Oct. 10 turned up no determination for either country since the January 2025 extensions. USCIS did post employer updates on Ukraine and Sudan TPS on Aug. 14 and Sept. 3, but those are agency web notices, not the Federal Register determination the statute requires.

The agency has said little publicly. In an Oct. 7 report by News10NBC (WHEC) in Rochester, N.Y., a USCIS spokesman, Zach Kahler, said the agency is “actively processing discretionary re-parole cases, including those for Ukrainians, on a case-by-case basis,” and the station reported that any future action on Ukraine TPS would be announced in a Federal Register notice. No date was given.

What the statute says happens next

The default rule sits in INA 244(b)(3)(C). If the Secretary “does not determine” under the 60-day review that a country no longer meets the conditions for TPS, “the period of designation of the foreign state is extended for an additional period of 6 months,” or 12 or 18 months if the Secretary chooses. Congress wrote the provision so that inaction favors continued protection, not lapse.

Read plainly, the text suggests that both designations rolled forward on their own once Aug. 20 passed without a negative finding. The Ukraine Immigration Task Force, an advocacy group for Ukrainian nationals, published that reading on Aug. 21 and put the new end date at April 19, 2027. DHS has neither endorsed nor rejected that interpretation in public.

A second provision limits how fast the government could act even now. Under INA 244(b)(3)(B), a termination cannot take effect earlier than 60 days after the termination notice is published or, if later, the end of the most recent extension. A termination notice published on Oct. 10 could not take effect before Dec. 9, 2026, by that count. If the automatic extension is in force, the earliest effective date would be April 19, 2027.

Analysis. There are two plausible readings of DHS’s silence. One is that the agency accepts the automatic extension and simply has not issued the paperwork that tells employers and benefit agencies about it, as it normally does through a Federal Register notice extending work permits. The other is that the administration, which has moved to end TPS for several other countries (USCIS has posted notices on the terminations for Syria and Burma, among others), intends to publish a termination and treat the 60-day requirement as directory rather than binding. Either path is possible on the current record. The statute’s text favors the first; the administration’s overall direction on TPS points toward the second.

Where the gap hurts: the Form I-9 on Oct. 20

Status and proof of status are not the same thing, and this is where the problem becomes concrete. The January 2025 notices automatically extended certain TPS work permits (category A12 or C19), but capped every such extension at Oct. 19, 2026. Without a new DHS notice, an employer reverifying a Ukrainian or Sudanese TPS holder on Oct. 20 has no government document showing work authorization beyond that date, even if the designation itself was extended by operation of law.

Employers face real exposure in both directions. Continuing to employ someone without acceptable documentation risks Form I-9 penalties. In past TPS transitions, the Federal Register notice did this work by naming the cards that stay valid and for how long. That is the document missing now.

Not everyone with Ukrainian or Sudanese nationality depends on TPS. Many Ukrainians entered under the Uniting for Ukraine parole program and may hold work permits tied to parole or a pending application instead. The USCIS statement about re-parole suggests that track is still moving case by case, but parole is discretionary and is not a substitute for a designation that covers everyone who registered.

If you hold Ukrainian or Sudanese TPS, or employ someone who does

Is my TPS ending on Oct. 19? Officially, DHS has not said. The statute points to an automatic extension to April 19, 2027, because no determination was published by Aug. 20, but USCIS has not confirmed that reading.
Can I keep working after Oct. 19? That depends on what DHS publishes in the next nine days. Keep your current work permit, your most recent Form I-797 notices and a copy of the January 2025 Federal Register notice for your country. Watch for a DHS notice that names which cards remain valid.
Should I look at other options now? Yes. Anyone with another possible basis to stay, such as a pending asylum case, a family or employment petition, or Uniting for Ukraine re-parole, should speak with an attorney about filing or documenting it before Oct. 19 rather than after.
Employers: Calendar every TPS-based Form I-9 reverification for Oct. 19, check the Federal Register and USCIS I-9 Central daily, and get legal advice before taking any adverse action against a worker on Oct. 20.

Can a court sort it out?

Less easily than a year ago. In Mullin v. Doe, decided June 25, 2026, the Supreme Court held 6-3 that the TPS statute’s bar on judicial review of any “determination” covers all non-constitutional challenges, including the process leading to a decision, according to a Congressional Research Service summary. That ruling allowed the terminations for Haiti and Syria to proceed.

A dispute over Ukraine and Sudan could test a question Mullin did not answer. The review bar applies to determinations, and here the government has made none. A beneficiary who argues that the designation was extended by statute is not asking a court to second-guess a country-conditions finding; the claim is that no finding was made in time. Whether courts would treat that as reviewable is untested. If DHS publishes a termination, the government would likely argue the bar applies to it in full, and the beneficiaries would argue the termination cannot reach back past the extension the statute already granted.

Dates to watch

Any day now: A Federal Register notice on Ukraine or Sudan TPS, and any matching USCIS update for employers.
Oct. 19, 2026: End of the current designation period and of the existing automatic work-permit extensions.
April 19, 2027: End date if the six-month statutory extension applies.

Immigration Analytics will update this story when DHS or USCIS publishes guidance on the Ukraine and Sudan designations. This article is for general information and is not legal advice. The situation is changing quickly, so please consult an immigration attorney about your specific case.

Sources

Vasanth Vaidyanathan, Esq.

Administrator

Vasanth Vaidyanathan is an immigration attorney with over 20 years of experience focused exclusively on U.S. immigration and nationality law. He holds a LL.M. from California Western School of Law, San Deigo and advises individuals and businesses on employment and family-based immigration matters, including H-1B, PERM, EB categories, and adjustment of status. He has also been a featured speaker at immigration seminars across the U.S. To reach Vasanth visit: https://www.vnathan.com/

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