US extends temporary protections for Ukrainian and Sudanese immigrants – at least for now
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Ukrainian and Sudanese immigrants living in the United States have been granted a temporary reprieve to retain their legal status, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed on Monday – the same day provisions were due to end.
A spokesperson for the DHS stated that existing immigration protections would continue, noting that formal decisions regarding Ukrainian and Sudanese Temporary Protected Status (TPS) recipients would “be made at the appropriate time”.
TPS enables foreign nationals present in the US to remain and gain lawful employment if their home countries face active conflict, natural disasters, or other severe conditions.
This extension represents the second inside two months for some individuals covered by the scheme, even as US President Donald Trump continues measures to deport other foreign citizens in an ongoing immigration crackdown.
In September, his administration allowed TPS holders from El Salvador to retain their protections after earlier moving to revoke it from Haitians, Venezuelans, Somalis, Yemenis, Syrians and others.
TPS was created by Congress in 1990 to prevent deportations to countries suffering from natural disasters or civil strife.
It was granted to El Salvador following two devastating 2001 earthquakes that left hundreds of thousands of people homeless. Just before leaving office, President Joe Biden extended TPS for El Salvador for 18 months to September 9, 2026.
The vast majority of Salvadoran TPS holders have children born in the US. Many have lost their jobs and fear being detained, separated from their American family members, and deported to a country they barely know.
The latest allowance comes as Trump has pivoted away from Ukraine in recent days, declining to impose tougher sanctions on Russia over the four-year-old war and lifting sanctions on Moscow’s diesel exports.
The US president used his executive powers late on Friday to block a raft of tough new sanctions he had previously endorsed, claiming the move was in America’s “national interests”.
Some 240,000 Ukrainians who fled the conflict have registered for TPS status in the United States.
There are an estimated 6,800 TPS holders from Sudan, where a war between the army and a rival paramilitary has created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
