Ukraine and Sudan TPS Passed October 19 With No Decision. The Statute Has an Answer. Your I-9 Does Not Yet.

Accurate as of October 26, 2026

Temporary Protected Status for Ukraine and Sudan was scheduled to end on Monday, October 19, 2026. That date came and went without a Federal Register notice extending the designations and without one terminating them. Instead, USCIS posted short alerts on its Ukraine and Sudan TPS pages stating that holders "retain protection including work authorization" and that a decision will be announced "at the appropriate time." E-Verify posted similar language.

For roughly 101,000 Ukrainian and 1,800 Sudanese TPS holders, and for every employer with one on payroll, that leaves a gap between what the law says and what the paperwork shows.

What the statute says

The TPS statute does not let a designation simply lapse. Under 8 U.S.C. 1254a(b)(3)(A), at least 60 days before a designation ends, the Secretary "shall determine whether the conditions for such designation under this subsection continue to be met" and publish notice of that determination. For an October 19 end date, that review was due by August 20, 2026.

What happens if no termination is published is spelled out in subsection (b)(3)(C): if the Secretary does not determine that the country no longer meets the conditions, "the period of designation of the foreign state is extended for an additional period of 6 months (or, in the discretion of the Attorney General, a period of 12 or 18 months)."

And a termination cannot take effect quickly. Under subsection (b)(3)(B), a termination "shall not be effective earlier than 60 days after the date the notice is published or, if later, the expiration of the most recent previous extension."

Read together, those provisions support a straightforward conclusion: absent a published termination, Ukraine and Sudan TPS continued past October 19, and the minimum statutory extension runs six months, to April 19, 2027. Work authorization follows status: under subsection (a)(2), it "shall be effective throughout the period the alien is in temporary protected status." DHS has not confirmed that reading, and it has not published a notice stating any new date.

Why employers are stuck anyway

Form I-9 compliance runs on documents and published dates, not on statutory inference. The last government instructions for these workers were built around October 19, 2026:

• The January 17, 2025 extension notices (90 FR 5936 for Ukraine, 90 FR 5944 for Sudan) extended the designations through October 19, 2026 and capped any automatic EAD extension at that date.
• USCIS later mailed individual notices to many Ukrainian re-registrants extending A12 and C19 EADs through October 19, 2026, and told employers to record that date on the I-9.

Nothing has replaced those instructions. There is no new expiration date to write in Section 2 or a Supplement B, no new document an employee can present, and no Federal Register notice that, as in past extensions, would itself serve as evidence of an automatic EAD extension.

What to do now

1. Do not terminate or suspend anyone because October 19 passed. USCIS has publicly stated that these holders keep work authorization. Acting on the old date, against the agency's own statement, invites a claim, including under the anti-discrimination provision at 8 U.S.C. 1324b.
2. Do not invent a new date. Do not write April 19, 2027 on a Form I-9 or extend anything by six months on your own. That is a reasonable reading of the statute, but it is not yet a government instruction.
3. Document your reliance. Save dated copies of the USCIS Ukraine and Sudan TPS pages and the E-Verify notice, and place a short memo with each affected Form I-9 explaining why reverification was deferred.
4. Work from dates, not nationality. Identify affected employees from the expiration dates already in your I-9 records, specifically A12 and C19 documents tied to October 19, 2026. Do not survey staff about where they are from.
5. Watch the Federal Register daily. DHS can publish an extension, a termination with at least 60 days' notice, or a notice confirming the six month extension. Whichever comes, the I-9 instructions will follow it, and your reverification calendar should be ready to move the same day.
6. Encourage affected employees to get advice now. A Ukrainian or Sudanese worker with a pending adjustment, an approved I-140 or another basis for status should not wait for the TPS decision to protect themselves.

If your company employs Ukrainian or Sudanese TPS holders, call Samper Law at (781) 321-3700 to review your Form I-9 records and a plan for each possible outcome.

Sources

• 8 U.S.C. 1254a(a)(2), (b)(3)(A), (b)(3)(B) and (b)(3)(C).
• Extension of the Designation of Ukraine for Temporary Protected Status, 90 FR 5936 (Jan. 17, 2025), designation through October 19, 2026.
• Extension of the Designation of Sudan for Temporary Protected Status, 90 FR 5944 (Jan. 17, 2025), designation through October 19, 2026.
• USCIS alerts on the Ukraine and Sudan TPS pages, posted October 19 and 20, 2026, as reported by AILA (Doc. No. 26101900) and practitioner alerts of October 20 to 22, 2026.
• Beneficiary counts as reported by the National Immigration Forum, Policy Bulletin, October 23, 2026 (figures as of March 2025).

General information, not legal advice. Reading this article does not create an attorney client relationship.