Federal Court Upholds One-Year Cap on TPS Work Permits, Pauses Asylum Fee Penalties: What Texas Holders Can Have Reviewed

What Changed, and When

On August 5, 2026, Senior U.S. District Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts issued a Memorandum & Order in Venezuelan Association of Massachusetts v. USCIS, No. 26-13038-NMG, deciding whether to pause several new federal work-authorization and asylum policies while a legal challenge to them proceeds. The ruling went both ways:

• The one-year cap on TPS work permits stands. The court declined to block the policy under which a TPS-based Employment Authorization Document (EAD), or any renewal or extension of one, is valid for one year or for the duration of the TPS designation, whichever is shorter. The court found the challengers had not shown they were likely to succeed in proving the cap unlawful, because the policy restates the language of the underlying 2025 statute.
• The cap applies to previously issued 540-day extensions. The court also declined to block the application of that cap to automatic 540-day EAD extensions already issued to TPS holders from El Salvador, Ukraine and Sudan, holding that this application is not impermissibly retroactive. According to the order, those extended documents had originally been set to run to August 31, 2026 (El Salvador) and October 11, 2026 (Ukraine and Sudan), while a March 2026 USCIS website update announced that 540-day extensions issued before July 21, 2025 would be valid no later than July 22, 2026.
• Penalties for not paying the new Annual Asylum Fee are paused nationwide. The court stayed — until it issues a final ruling on the merits — the policies under which a pending asylum application could be rejected, and removal proceedings could be initiated, because the applicant did not pay the new annual fee. The court found the challengers likely to succeed on that claim because those consequences were adopted without the required public notice-and-comment process. The fee itself was not blocked.
• The 30-day processing window stays gone. The court declined to block the removal of the former requirement that USCIS decide an initial asylum-based work-permit application within 30 days, describing that change as a rule of agency procedure.

An earlier emergency order issued July 21, 2026 had temporarily protected the affected work permits and asylum applications while the court considered the question. That temporary protection ran through August 5 and has now been replaced by this ruling. TPS holders and employers can expect USCIS and E-Verify to publish updated guidance reflecting the decision; the agency pages linked below are where those updates appear.

The Litigation Behind the Ruling

The case challenges three policies adopted by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and the Department of Homeland Security to implement H.R. 1, the federal law signed on July 4, 2025, which changed the framework for TPS work permits and asylum applications. The challenged policies are the one-year cap itself, a March 2026 USCIS website update applying the cap to previously issued 540-day extensions, and portions of an April 29, 2026 interim final rule covering the cap and the consequences of not paying the Annual Asylum Fee.

The plaintiffs are membership organizations — the Venezuelan Association of Massachusetts, the National TPS Alliance, the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, and the Service Employees International Union and its Local 32BJ — suing on behalf of TPS holders and asylum applicants. The court held they had standing to bring the case, and it held that the relief it granted on the asylum-fee penalties applies nationwide, not just to the plaintiffs, because relief under the Administrative Procedure Act postpones the agency action itself.

This is a separate case from the litigation over the terminations of individual TPS country designations, which has its own orders and its own dates — including the court order currently extending Ethiopia and South Sudan TPS work permits and the Supreme Court decision that allowed the Haiti and Syria terminations to take effect in July. A person can be affected by more than one of these cases at the same time, which is one more reason an individual document review matters.

Who in Texas This Reaches

This is a national ruling tied to immigration status, not to any state, and the order contains no Texas-specific breakdown. We are not going to invent one.

What is on the public record is that Texas holds one of the largest TPS populations in the country. Congressional Research Service figures reported in 2025 put 147,080 TPS holders in Texas as of March 31, 2025 — second only to Florida — across all designated countries combined. That figure covers every TPS nationality and should not be read as a count of the people this ruling reaches.

In practical terms, the August 5 decision reaches four groups in Texas:

• TPS holders from El Salvador, Ukraine and Sudan whose current work permits rest on a 540-day automatic extension. El Salvador is among the largest TPS nationalities in the United States, and Texas’s Salvadoran communities are concentrated in the Houston and Dallas–Fort Worth areas, though holders live throughout the state.
• Every TPS holder filing a renewal, whose new EAD is now capped at one year or the length of the designation, whichever is shorter.
• Asylum applicants with pending applications, for whom the annual fee remains in place but the rejection-and-removal consequences of missing it are paused, and for whom initial work-permit processing no longer carries a 30-day decision deadline.
• Employers and families — employers who must verify documents whose operative dates are set by litigation rather than by the date printed on the card, and households whose income, coverage or housing depends on that work authorization continuing.

What This Changes Legally

1. This is a preliminary ruling, not the end of the case. The court decided which policies would be paused while the lawsuit proceeds. The final merits ruling comes later, and any part of this decision can be appealed. Nothing here is a final judgment about any policy or any person.

2. The one-year cap is in effect while the case continues. The court let the cap stand because it tracks the statute. New and renewed TPS work permits are limited to one year, and the court declined to protect the longer 540-day extensions previously issued to El Salvador, Ukraine and Sudan TPS holders.

3. A shorter permit is not a shorter status. The order addresses how long a work-permit document can be valid. It does not terminate anyone’s TPS, and the court noted the government retains tools — such as automatic extensions of expiring documents — to prevent gaps in authorization for people whose status continues. Whether a particular document is currently valid is exactly the kind of question the updated USCIS guidance and an attorney review answer.

4. The asylum-fee pause is a pause, not a repeal. The Annual Asylum Fee itself was not blocked. What the court stayed, nationwide and until a final ruling, is the rejection of pending applications and the initiation of removal proceedings for nonpayment. That protection lasts only as long as the court order behind it.

5. Initial asylum work permits may take longer. With the 30-day processing requirement removed, there is no regulatory deadline for USCIS to decide an initial asylum-based work-permit application.

What Kind of Option Might Apply

Nothing on this page tells you what your status is, how long your work authorization lasts, or what you should do. Those depend on your own record. What experienced Texas immigration attorneys describe working through with people in this situation includes:

• Reading your actual documents — confirming which EAD you hold, whether it rests on a 540-day extension, what the operative expiration date now is under the current guidance, and when a renewal application could be filed.
• Renewal timing under a one-year cap — shorter validity periods mean renewals come around more often, and the timing of each filing has consequences a lawyer can map out in advance.
• Whether any other status or form of relief may be available — family-based or employment-based petitions, asylum, withholding, humanitarian categories, or adjustment of status. Many long-time TPS holders have never had their file reviewed for anything other than TPS.
• Asylum fee questions — whether and when the annual fee applies to a particular pending application, what the current court order does and does not protect, and how to document payment.
• Employment verification problems — what to do if an employer misreads a card whose printed date no longer controls, or if a job offer or background check stalls over a date set by litigation.
• What a change in the litigation would actually mean — and what could be prepared in advance rather than in a hurry.

A consumer-protection note Texas attorneys raise often: immigration work should be handled by a licensed attorney or by a representative accredited by the U.S. Department of Justice. In some countries a notario público is a trained legal professional; in Texas a notary public is not, and cannot give immigration advice. The Texas Attorney General’s consumer protection office takes complaints about that kind of practice. People under time pressure are the people most often targeted by it.

Why Acting Quickly Can Matter

The dates in this sequence are facts, and they are worth having in front of you when you talk to a lawyer:

• July 4, 2025 — H.R. 1 signed into law, including the one-year EAD cap and the Annual Asylum Fee.
• March 2026 — USCIS website update stating that 540-day extensions issued before July 21, 2025 would be valid no later than July 22, 2026.
• April 29, 2026 — interim final rule implementing the cap and the asylum-fee consequences.
• July 21, 2026 — emergency court order temporarily pausing the retroactive cut-off and the asylum-fee penalties.
• August 5, 2026 — the current ruling: the cap and its application to prior extensions stand; the asylum-fee penalties stay paused until a final merits decision.
• August 31 / October 11, 2026 — the dates the 540-day extended EADs for El Salvador (August 31) and Ukraine and Sudan (October 11) would otherwise have run to, per the order.

The reason to talk to someone now is ordinary rather than alarming. A person whose documents are reviewed while options are open is in the easiest possible posture; a review that takes an hour today can save a considerable amount of difficulty later. It is also worth keeping perspective: this ruling is not a removal order, a denial, or a finding against anyone. For many people this is a document-and-calendar problem with a known answer, and for some it turns out that a path they never knew about was available the whole time. The only way to find out which is true for you is to have a lawyer look.

Sources

1. U.S. District Court, D. Mass. — Memorandum & Order, Venezuelan Association of Massachusetts v. USCIS, No. 26-13038-NMG (Aug. 5, 2026) (primary document)
2. CourtListener — Docket, Venezuelan Association of Massachusetts v. USCIS, 1:26-cv-13038 (D. Mass.)
3. U.S. District Court, D. Mass. — Memorandum & Order granting emergency relief in part (July 21, 2026)
4. Bloomberg Law — Court Denies Bid to Block New Limits on Migrant Work Permits (Aug. 2026)
5. Fragomen — Federal District Court Allows Employment Authorization for Beneficiaries of El Salvador, Ukraine, and Sudan TPS to Expire
6. JURIST — Federal judge blocks USCIS from revoking work permits for asylum seekers and TPS holders (July 23, 2026)
7. Democracy Forward — Court Grants Emergency Relief Protecting Work Authorization for Asylum Seekers and TPS Holders (July 2026) (plaintiff-side statement)
8. Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project — VAM v. USCIS: Annual Asylum Fees and Work Permits (case explainer) (plaintiff-side statement)
9. Texas Signal — TPS and Texas: By the Numbers (Congressional Research Service figures as of March 31, 2025)