United States | Supreme Court clears way for DHS to terminate 2023 Venezuela TPS designation

The Department of Homeland Security announced on Oct. 3 that “the Supreme Court of the United States granted an emergency request by the Trump administration to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for over 300,000 Venezuelan aliens in the United States.”

Key Points:

• In granting the application for a stay on Oct. 3 in Noem et al. v National TPS Alliance et al., Case 25A326, the court concluded, “Although the posture of the case has changed, the parties’ legal arguments and relative harms generally have not. The same result that we reached in May is appropriate here.”
• The government applied for the emergency stay after the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied a stay of the Sept. 5 ruling by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. That ruling had allowed the 2023 TPS designation for Venezuela to continue, extending TPS for beneficiaries under the 2023 Venezuela designation through Oct. 2, 2026.
• On Sept. 15, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services published guidance on the validity of certain Form I-766 Employment Authorization Documents (EADs) issued under the 2023 and 2021 TPS designations for Venezuela. USCIS then published updated guidance on Oct. 2 after the Ninth Circuit denied the stay.
• After the Oct. 3 Supreme Court ruling, USCIS updated the Venezuela TPS website to state that the Supreme Court had allowed the termination of the 2023 designation to “take immediate effect” and that “TPS beneficiaries who received an Employment Authorization Document on or before February 5, 2025, with a ‘Card Expires’ date of October 2, 2026, will maintain work authorization until October 2, 2026.”
• USCIS has not published updated guidance on the I-9 Central page since the Oct. 3 Supreme Court ruling.

Additional Information: Employers are encouraged to consult with their BAL attorney for case-specific guidance. Litigation remains ongoing, and BAL will continue to monitor and provide updates as more information becomes available. The 2021 designation of Venezuela for TPS is currently scheduled to terminate Nov. 7, 2025. More information can be found on the USCIS website.

This alert has been provided by the BAL U.S. Practice Group.

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