Ukrainians and Sudanese Keep US Deportation Protections for Now, DHS Says

Ukrainians and Sudanese living in the United States under Temporary Protected Status will keep their protection from deportation for now, even though their status was set to expire on Monday, the Department of Homeland Security said on Sunday.

In statements to CNN and CBS News, the department said final decisions on the two programs "will be made at the appropriate time." Until those decisions are announced, nationals of Ukraine and Sudan enrolled in TPS will retain protection, DHS said.

What TPS does

Temporary Protected Status is a form of humanitarian relief. It lets people fleeing war, natural disasters or humanitarian crises live and work in the United States for a set period without fear of deportation.

As of March 2025, more than 100,000 Ukrainians and more than 1,790 nationals of Sudan were enrolled in the program, according to federal data cited by CNN. The protections for both countries were officially slated to terminate on Monday, Oct. 19.

A reprieve inside a wider crackdown

The decision to keep the protections in place, while not final, runs against the direction of the Trump administration's wider policy. Over the past year and a half, the administration has revoked TPS protections for more than 1 million immigrants from over a dozen countries, including Afghanistan, Haiti and Venezuela, CBS News reported. Administration officials have argued that the permissions are temporary, not a permanent solution, and have criticized past administrations for extending them again and again.

The Ukraine and Sudan programs are now among a handful of TPS designations still in place. El Salvador is in the same position. Its designation was set to lapse last month, and DHS kept Salvadoran protections in force pending a final announcement, the same holding pattern it has now applied to Ukrainians and Sudanese.

In June, the US Supreme Court allowed the administration to end temporary deportation protections for hundreds of thousands of people from Haiti and Syria. People who have lost TPS status face the risk of detention and deportation, and many Salvadorans told CNN last month that they worry their own reprieve could end at any time.

For Ukrainians and Sudanese in the program, Sunday's statement removes the immediate deadline. It does not settle what comes next. DHS gave no date for its final decisions, and until they come, the protections rest on the department's word that enrolled migrants retain them.

How the two programs began

Congress created Temporary Protected Status in 1990. The policy lets the government offer a temporary reprieve from deportation and work permits to people, whether they entered the country legally or not, who come from places facing armed conflict, an environmental disaster or another crisis that makes returning unsafe.

The two programs now in limbo started in very different times. The Ukraine designation was first announced by the Biden administration in the spring of 2022, soon after Russia launched its full invasion of Ukraine, and the March 2025 count of more than 100,000 Ukrainians includes people let into the United States under a Biden era sponsorship policy. The Sudan program has been in place since the late 1990s. Different administrations have extended it over the years because of the armed conflict and political turmoil in Sudan, and about 1,800 Sudanese nationals held the status in the same March 2025 count.

That long history is part of the argument around the program. Administration officials have called TPS a de facto amnesty that was abused by the Biden administration, encouraged illegal immigration and was extended too often for a policy that is meant to be temporary, CBS News reported. Sunday's holding decision does not settle that argument. It only keeps the Ukraine and Sudan protections in place while it continues.