Haiti and Syria TPS Ended July 27, 2026: What It Means for People in Texas

What Changed, and When

The Department of Homeland Security published a notice in the Federal Register on November 28, 2025 terminating the designation of Haiti for Temporary Protected Status. The notice, 90 Fed. Reg. 54733, set the termination to take effect at 11:59 p.m. local time on February 3, 2026, and stated that approximately 352,959 Haitian nationals held TPS at that time. A separate notice covered Syria.

Neither termination took effect on its original date. Both were challenged in court, and both were paused while the litigation ran. On June 25, 2026, the United States Supreme Court decided Mullin v. Doe, No. 25-1083, together with a companion case involving Syria, No. 25-1084. By a vote of 6 to 3, the Court held that 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1254a(b)(5)(A) — Section 244(b)(5)(A) of the Immigration and Nationality Act — bars courts from reviewing the Secretary of Homeland Security’s determinations about designating or terminating TPS for a country.

The exact end date moved several times in the weeks that followed, which is why so much of the guidance circulating online is out of date. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued an order on July 22, 2026 keeping protections and work authorization in place a few days longer, and USCIS then published an update on July 24, 2026 confirming the operative date. Under that guidance, employers completing Form I-9 for an affected worker were told to enter “as per court order” in Section 1 and July 27, 2026 in Section 2.

So the plain fact, as of this writing: TPS for Haiti and for Syria terminated effective July 27, 2026. The July 24 USCIS guidance superseded its own July 10 guidance, which had superseded a July 1 version. If you are reading an instruction sheet from earlier in the month, it has been replaced.

Who in Texas This Reaches

Texas is the second largest TPS state in the country, after Florida. As of March 31, 2025, roughly 147,000 people in Texas held Temporary Protected Status across all designated countries, according to figures compiled in the National Immigration Forum’s TPS fact sheet and reported in Texas coverage.

How many of those 147,000 are Haitian or Syrian is not publicly broken out. Spectrum News reported on July 13, 2026 that it is unclear how many of Texas’s TPS holders are affected by the Haiti and Syria change. National advocacy tallies of Haitian TPS holders by state put the largest populations in Florida, New York, Massachusetts and New Jersey, and do not list Texas among the top states — but Harris and Dallas counties are home to established Haitian communities, and no one has published a reliable Texas count. Anyone offering you a precise Texas number is guessing.

The people most directly reached by the change include:

• Haitian and Syrian nationals in Texas whose lawful status rested on TPS
• Their spouses and children, including U.S.-citizen children in mixed-status households
• Workers whose employment authorization document was issued under a TPS category (A-12 or C-19)
• Texas employers who now have reverification obligations for affected employees
• Households where a pending application for another immigration benefit was filed but has not been decided

Two more dates are worth writing down, because they are coming and they reach far more Texans: TPS for El Salvador is currently set to run through September 9, 2026, and a limited group of Venezuelan TPS holders face an expiration of October 2, 2026. Venezuelans and Salvadorans are among the largest TPS nationalities in Texas.

What This Changes Legally

Three things happen when a TPS designation terminates, and it helps to keep them separate.

The status itself ends. TPS is temporary by design. Under 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1254a, it is a country-specific designation that the Secretary of Homeland Security may extend or terminate; when it ends, a person reverts to whatever immigration status they held before TPS, if any. After Mullin, a federal court cannot second-guess the decision to terminate the designation itself.

Work authorization tied to that status ends with it. Employment authorization documents issued under the TPS category are no longer valid past the termination date unless a court order says otherwise. USCIS’s July 24, 2026 guidance identified which EAD expiration dates were covered by the court-ordered extension. Employers reverify using Supplement B to Form I-9, and an expired TPS-based EAD cannot be used for that reverification. An employee may present any other acceptable document establishing work authorization.

What does not automatically follow is a removal order. Losing TPS is not the same thing as being ordered removed from the United States. Removal is a separate legal process, with its own notice requirements and its own opportunities to be heard. What ending TPS does is remove one protection that had been standing in the way.

On the enforcement side, the Haitian Times reported on July 21, 2026 that the director-general of Haiti’s National Office of Migration said U.S. officials had informed Haiti to expect regular deportation flights, at a pace of roughly 250 people per week, after July 24. TIME reported on July 27, 2026, citing anonymously sourced accounts, that ICE was preparing expanded arrest operations; the Department of Homeland Security has said it does not discuss ongoing or future operations. We are reporting what those sources said, not predicting what will happen in any individual case.

Litigation has not stopped. A separate petition involving Venezuelan and Haitian TPS is pending at the Supreme Court as No. 26-48, with a response from challengers due August 12, 2026, and the D.C. Circuit case returned to that court on July 27, 2026. A House-passed bill, H.R. 1689, which would require a new Haiti designation, has not advanced in the Senate. Any of these could change the landscape, or none of them could.

What Kind of Option Might Apply

This is the part where a lawyer earns their fee, and where general information stops being useful. The immigration laws contain a number of separate forms of relief, and they do not all rise and fall with TPS. Depending entirely on a person’s own history, family, and circumstances, an immigration attorney may look at:

• Asylum, and the related claims of withholding of removal and protection under the Convention Against Torture. Note the deadline discussed in the next section.
• Adjustment of status through a family member or an employer, where a petition is available
• Cancellation of removal, for those who meet its residence and hardship requirements
• U visas for certain crime victims who assisted law enforcement, and T visas for certain trafficking victims
• Special Immigrant Juvenile classification for some young people
• VAWA self-petitions for certain survivors of abuse by a qualifying relative
• Whether any pending application already on file is unaffected by the TPS change

Every one of those has its own eligibility rules, evidentiary requirements, and filing windows, and some of them carry real risk if filed without a careful look at the facts first. Nothing on this page tells you whether you qualify for any of them — that is a question about your specific history, and it is exactly what an immigration lawyer reviews with you. A licensed attorney can also tell you plainly when there is no good option, which is worth knowing too.

One practical caution that is not legal advice, just consumer protection: in Texas, only a licensed attorney or a representative accredited by the Department of Justice may give legal advice on an immigration case. A “notario” or immigration consultant is not a lawyer, and Texas law restricts what they may do. The Texas Attorney General’s consumer protection office takes complaints about immigration services fraud.

Why Acting Quickly Can Matter

Several of the deadlines in this area are hard ones, and they run whether or not a person knows about them.

• The asylum one-year filing deadline. Under 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1158(a)(2)(B), an asylum application generally must be filed within one year of arrival in the United States. The statute provides exceptions at Sec. 1158(a)(2)(D) for changed circumstances materially affecting eligibility, or extraordinary circumstances relating to the delay. Whether an exception applies to a particular person is a legal question with a factual answer, and it is one of the first things an attorney will ask about.
• Work authorization gaps. Once a TPS-based EAD lapses, an employer’s reverification obligation is triggered. If another basis for work authorization exists, the timing of that filing matters.
• Immigration court deadlines. If a Notice to Appear issues, the case moves on a schedule set by the court, and missing a hearing can result in an order entered in a person’s absence.
• Evidence gets harder to gather over time. Country-conditions evidence, medical records, police reports and witness statements are easier to assemble early than late.

None of that means panic is warranted. It means that the useful thing to do with the next few weeks is to get a lawyer to look at the actual facts, rather than to wait and see.

Sources

1. Federal Register — Termination of the Designation of Haiti for Temporary Protected Status, 90 Fed. Reg. 54733 (Nov. 28, 2025)
2. Supreme Court of the United States — Mullin v. Doe, No. 25-1083 (decided June 25, 2026), slip opinion
3. USCIS I-9 Central — Update on Termination of Temporary Protected Status for Haiti (released July 24, 2026)
4. E-Verify — Update on Termination of Temporary Protected Status for Haiti (released July 24, 2026)
5. 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1254a — Temporary protected status (INA Sec. 244)
6. 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1158 — Asylum, including the one-year filing deadline and its exceptions
7. SCOTUSblog — Coverage of the June 25, 2026 decision
8. The Hill — D.C. Circuit order of July 22, 2026
9. Spectrum News — Texas TPS holders and the Haiti and Syria change (July 13, 2026)
10. National Immigration Forum — Temporary Protected Status fact sheet (TPS holders by state)
11. Haitian Times — U.S. informs Haiti of upcoming deportation flights (July 21, 2026)
12. TIME — Reporting on planned enforcement operations (July 27, 2026)
13. NPR — TPS for Haiti and Syria expires (July 27, 2026)
14. SCOTUSblog — Pending Supreme Court petition No. 26-48 (July 15, 2026)
15. Congress.gov — H.R. 1689, all actions