U.S. Court Postpones End of Yemen TPS, Businesses Must Revise Form I-9

From the official announcement by USCIS ↗

What is happening

According to an update from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (USCIS) dated July 1, 2026, the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program for Yemeni citizens remains suspended due to an order from a federal court in New York. Former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had decided that Yemen no longer qualified to maintain TPS, and this termination decision was published in the Federal Register on March 3, 2026, set to take effect on April 5, 2026.

However, just three days before the deadline, Federal Judge Dale Ho at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York issued an emergency order preventing the termination of TPS for approximately 3,000 Yemeni nationals living in the United States. The 36-page ruling criticized the administration for repeating arguments that multiple other courts, including a panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, had previously rejected.

Who is affected and when

According to USCIS, employment authorization documents (EAD) issued under Yemen TPS with expiration dates of March 3, 2026, September 3, 2024, or March 3, 2023 are automatically extended under the court order. This is only a temporary measure, lasting until the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York adjusts its ruling to conform with a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in Mullin v. Doe, issued on June 25, 2026. In other words, this protective shield could close at any moment once the lower court follows the Supreme Court's precedent.

The directly affected group includes approximately 2,810 Yemeni nationals holding TPS and 425 pending applications, according to figures cited by triblive.com from court records. For the Vietnamese American community, the relevant parties are not Yemeni nationals themselves, but rather small business owners, nail salon operators, restaurant owners, and family businesses employing workers on TPS status, as they bear legal responsibility when completing Form I-9.

What businesses must do on paperwork

According to USCIS guidance, employers must enter the phrase as per court order in Section 1 of Form I-9 and enter July 10, 2026 in the expiration date field in Section 2. On the E-Verify system, the expiration date to be entered must also be July 10, 2026. This is how human resources departments can confirm that employees still have legal work authorization while the Doe v. Noem lawsuit remains unresolved.

See USCIS's official announcement at the source link below.

Analysis

The Yemen case is just one link in a broader Trump administration campaign to terminate TPS for 13 countries, from Haiti and Venezuela to Ethiopia and Syria, according to jurist.org. The U.S. Supreme Court in June allowed the administration to revoke TPS for approximately 348,000 Venezuelan nationals, overturning a lower court's decision, with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson as the sole public voice of dissent. This trend has led observers to believe that Yemen will likely follow the same path once the New York court is forced to align with the Mullin v. Doe precedent. Notably, the Department of Homeland Security had previously described TPS applicants using derogatory language—a characterization that Federal Judge Dale Ho publicly rejected in his ruling, revealing the gap between politics and legal reality.

Diaspora Impact

Readers do not need to take action if they do not directly employ workers on Yemen TPS status. However, if you are a small business owner, nail salon operator, restaurant owner, construction company, and have staff holding Yemen TPS work permits with expiration dates of March 3, 2026, September 3, 2024, or March 3, 2023, you should immediately update your Form I-9 and E-Verify records according to the new guidance, entering as per court order and the date July 10, 2026. There is no fee for this update. Keep a close eye on uscis.gov because the protection status could change at any time once the New York court issues a final ruling based on the Supreme Court's precedent.