At the end of June, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) notified Temporary Protected Status (TPS) beneficiaries from El Salvador, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, and Sudan that the validity period for their work permits (employment authorization documents, or EADs) would be automatically extended through March 9, 2025.1 USCIS also extended through August 3, 2025, the validity period of EADs issued to Haitian TPS beneficiaries. These automatic extensions follow the extension by U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) of the re-registration periods of the TPS designations for these same countries from 60 days to the full 18-month designation period at the end of 2023.2
Beneficiaries are normally required to re-register for TPS status for the most recent designation extension for each designated country. The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), however, only permits the Secretary of Homeland Security to designate a country for TPS for a period no longer than 18 months.3
USCIS officials revealed at a recent stakeholder engagement that DHS extended the validity of their documents in part because of a low rate of re-registrations from these countries. Almost 50 percent of the eligible El Salvador, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, and Sudan TPS beneficiaries have failed to re-register for TPS for their current respective designation periods.4
There are a few possible reasons for beneficiaries’ failure to re-register for TPS. TPS beneficiaries may be misinformed or confused about the requirement to re-register, especially given recent court orders under the Ramos v. Mayorkas and Bhattarai v. Mayorkas litigation (companion cases challenging the Trump administration’s 2017 and 2018 attempts to terminate these countries’ TPS designations) that have allowed TPS to be automatically extended for these countries.5 Additionally, eligible applicants may have obtained or have pending applications to obtain other immigration benefits, such as asylum, or simply see no reason to pay the fees associated with re-registration given the current administration’s nearly non-existent interior enforcement policies.
In December 2023, DHS explained that it extended the re-registration periods for “a number of reasons,” including “confusion within the beneficiary population and operational considerations for USCIS.” DHS further explained that “Limiting the reregistration period to 60 days for these particular beneficiaries may place a burden on applicants who are unable to timely file but would otherwise be eligible to re-register for TPS, particularly in light of the ongoing litigation and the resulting overlapping periods of TPS validity announces in several Federal Register notices, which may be confusing to some current beneficiaries.”
USCIS’s historic backlogs and growing EAD portfolio is also likely to blame for the agency’s decision to automatically extend the validity period of TPS beneficiaries’ EAD documents. Last year, the USCIS Ombudsman (a Biden administration appointee) confirmed that the agency has struggled immensely with its EAD portfolio, and pointed to the administration’s historic expansion of TPS as a major factor. In its 2023 report to Congress, the Ombudsman wrote, “Processing work authorization for these populations in itself is a never-ending task for the agency.” The USCIS Ombudsman noted that this growing population means “that the agency carries a larger and more complex workload with each new designation or extension.”
The Biden-Harris administration has expanded the TPS population to historic levels by extending or re-designating TPS for every country that had current designations at the time President Biden took office, as well as by designating new countries for TPS. Many of these countries, however, were designated decades ago, and some were premised on storms that have long passed, such as 1998’s Hurricane Mitch, which has protected nationals from Honduras and Nicaragua from removal (and provided work authorization) ever since, despite no longer posing disruptions in these countries. As of March 2024, 863,880 people are estimated to be protected from removal under TPS.
1 Re-registration periods for these countries all end on different dates, but the EADs are all extended through the same date: March 9, 2025.
2 DHS previously extended the re-registration periods for individuals to submit TPS applications:
- El Salvador now runs through March 9, 2025;
- Honduras now runs through July 5, 2025;
- Nepal now runs through June 24, 2025;
- Nicaragua now runs through July 5, 2025; and
- Sudan now runs through April 19, 2025.
3 Section 244 of the INA allows the Secretary of Homeland Security to extend TPS benefits only after making a determination that conditions in that country warrant an extension. The Secretary of Homeland Security may only designate a country for TPS (or extend an existing designation) if that country is experiencing:
- An ongoing armed conflict within the country such that requiring the return of nationals to that country would pose a serious threat to their personal safety;
- A natural or environment disaster resulting in a substantial, but temporary, disruption of living conditions such that the foreign state is temporarily unable to adequately handle the return of their nationals; or
- “Extraordinary and temporary” conditions in the foreign state that prevent nationals of the state from returning safely (unless the secretary determines that permitting such aliens to remain temporarily in the United States is contrary to the national interest of the United States).
4 Approximately 136,000 of about 239,000 eligible TPS beneficiaries applied for re-registration under El Salvador’s designation; less than 30,000 of approximately 76,000 eligible TPS beneficiaries applied for re-registration under Honduras’s designation; approximately 4,600 of about 14,500 eligible TPS beneficiaries applied for re-registration under Nepal’s designation; approximately 2,1000 of about 4,000 eligible TPS beneficiaries applied for re-registration under Nicaragua’s designation; and nearly 500 of approximately 700 eligible TPS beneficiaries applied for re-registration under Sudan’s designation.
5 Asylum applicants are also eligible for work authorization 180 days after submitting an asylum application.