A federal judge has temporarily halted the Trump administration’s attempt to strip work authorization from thousands of immigrants with Temporary Protected Status from El Salvador, Sudan, and Ukraine, ruling the government failed to follow proper legal procedure. The decision preserves livelihoods for tens of thousands of families while a broader legal challenge over new immigration fee and enforcement policies moves through the courts. The case is one of several nationwide testing the limits of immigration provisions tucked into last year’s sweeping Republican tax and spending law.
Story Highlights
- Judge Nathaniel Gorton blocked USCIS from revoking work permits for TPS holders from El Salvador, Sudan, and Ukraine
- The policy, set to take effect as early as Wednesday, stemmed from provisions in the 2025 tax and spending law
- TPS remains valid for El Salvador through September 9 and for Sudan and Ukraine through October 19
- The judge allowed collection of a new asylum fee to continue but blocked penalties for nonpayment
What Happened
A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from stripping work permits from tens of thousands of immigrants with Temporary Protected Status and asylum seekers, halting a policy that was scheduled to take effect as early as this past Wednesday. U.S. District Judge Nathaniel Gorton, an appointee of Republican President George H.W. Bush, sided with immigrant rights groups and labor unions that had sued to stop a series of new U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services policies implementing immigration restrictions passed by Congress the previous year.
The lawsuit, filed by the legal advocacy group Democracy Forward, challenged USCIS’s implementation of provisions from Trump’s signature tax and spending legislation, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which Republicans in Congress passed in July 2025. Plaintiffs argued the agency had unlawfully applied new restrictions retroactively to TPS holders from El Salvador, Sudan, and Ukraine, cutting short work authorization periods that had previously been extended under the Biden administration in January 2025.
Judge Gorton’s ruling specifically prevents USCIS from terminating work permits or imposing other penalties tied to a new asylum-related fee, even though he declined to block the agency from collecting the fee itself while the broader case proceeds. The plaintiffs had argued the new USCIS policies were legally invalid because the public was never given notice or an opportunity to comment on them, a requirement under the federal Administrative Procedure Act, and because the restrictions were applied retroactively without clear statutory authorization from Congress.
Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, said the ruling ensures thousands of families will not immediately lose their ability to work while courts determine whether the administration’s policies are lawful. TPS protections remain valid for El Salvador through September 9 and for Sudan and Ukraine through October 19, meaning the practical effect of the ruling is to preserve the status quo through those dates while litigation continues. The case was filed in Boston, a venue that has become a frequent destination for legal challenges to the administration’s immigration agenda.
Why It Matters
The ruling has immediate, tangible consequences for tens of thousands of families who depend on TPS work authorization to remain employed legally in the United States. For workers from countries experiencing war, natural disaster, or political instability, losing that authorization can mean the sudden loss of a paycheck, health coverage, and legal footing in the country, making the court’s intervention consequential well beyond the legal technicalities at issue.
For employers in industries that rely heavily on TPS-holding workers, including construction, health care, hospitality, and food processing, the ruling offers temporary stability by preventing an abrupt workforce disruption that could have affected staffing levels in numerous sectors and regions.
The case also illustrates the broader legal battle unfolding over how aggressively the administration can implement immigration provisions embedded in last year’s reconciliation legislation. Because the law was passed through the budget process rather than as standalone immigration legislation, questions about how its provisions can be lawfully implemented by federal agencies are likely to keep surfacing in courts nationwide.
For the administration, the ruling represents another instance of federal courts slowing implementation of its immigration enforcement agenda, adding to a pattern of litigation-driven delays that has characterized much of its second-term immigration policy rollout.
Economic and Global Context
Temporary Protected Status has historically applied to hundreds of thousands of immigrants across multiple countries, and abrupt work authorization losses can ripple through regional labor markets, particularly in states with concentrated TPS populations. Economists have noted that sudden removal of work authorization from large groups of legal workers can create short-term labor shortages in already tight sectors such as construction and elder care, potentially raising costs for businesses and consumers alike.
The case also reflects a broader tightening of legal immigration pathways under the current administration, which has moved to terminate or narrow TPS designations for numerous countries even as it preserved protections for El Salvador, Sudan, and Ukraine specifically, reflecting the geopolitical sensitivities tied to those nations’ ongoing crises.
Globally, the litigation underscores how U.S. immigration policy continues to be shaped as much by federal courts as by executive action or legislation, a dynamic that international observers and allied governments monitor closely given the diplomatic implications of how the United States treats displaced populations from allied or crisis-affected nations, particularly Ukraine amid its ongoing war.
Implications
In the near term, the ruling buys time for TPS holders from the three affected countries, but it does not resolve the underlying legal questions about whether USCIS’s broader implementation of the 2025 law is valid. Further hearings are expected as the case progresses toward a fuller judicial review.
For the Trump administration, the decision is likely to prompt either an appeal or an effort to revise the challenged policies to address the procedural defects the judge identified, since the ruling turned significantly on the government’s failure to follow notice-and-comment rulemaking requirements rather than solely on substantive objections to the policy itself.
For Congress, the case adds to a growing list of legal disputes over how reconciliation-passed immigration provisions can be implemented, potentially prompting future legislative clarification or oversight hearings on USCIS’s rulemaking practices.
For affected families and employers, the coming months will bring continued uncertainty, as TPS deadlines for El Salvador, Sudan, and Ukraine approach even as the broader litigation remains unresolved, leaving open the possibility of renewed disruption once those specific status expiration dates arrive.
Sources
“US judge blocks Trump bid to strip work permits from immigrants”Â
