Businesses face confusion as Haitian TPS work permits near expiration

A July 10 deadline gave way to a July 24 extension, leaving employers scrambling to decide which Haitian workers could stay on the job and which ones had to be let go. DHS and USCIS told employers on July 1 to treat Haitian TPS work authorization as valid only through July 10, then updated that guidance to extend many permits through July 24.

The Supreme Court’s June 25 ruling in Mullin v. Doe let the Trump administration move ahead with ending Temporary Protected Status for Haitians and Syrians after lower-court orders had paused the terminations. Haiti’s TPS end date had originally been set for February 3, 2026, before a federal court stay delayed it. The change affects about 350,000 people from Haiti and about 7,000 from Syria, and DHS and USCIS issued rolling TPS employment-authentication updates for beneficiaries from Burma, Somalia, Yemen, Ethiopia and South Sudan.

USCIS told employers to enter “as per court order” in Section 1 and “July 10, 2026” in Section 2 for certain I-9 records, while SAVE guidance kept Haiti TPS beneficiaries’ status and work authorization under the court order. Forms I-766 with A12 or C19 categories remained valid and extended.

The business fallout is spreading through health care, home health, hospitality, food services, manufacturing, hospitals, hospices, nursing homes, construction, retail and elderly care. More than 112,000 Haitians work in the U.S. health-care industry, and immigrants make up 18.8% of the overall health-care workforce. In Florida, Massachusetts, New York and South Florida, Haitian workers are heavily represented in nursing homes, home-health jobs and other care roles, where even short staffing gaps can leave shifts uncovered and residents without consistent care.

In South Florida, Haitian workers and advocates have held rallies and pushed people to get legal and estate matters in order as deadlines narrowed. At Fort Lauderdale’s airport, some Haitian workers began losing jobs as the uncertainty deepened.