U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services issued an update on August 12, 2026 confirming two things at once for Salvadoran Temporary Protected Status holders: their work permits are being rescued from a paperwork gap, and the program itself is still scheduled to end.
According to the agency’s notice, the TPS designation for El Salvador and its related benefits are set to terminate on September 9, 2026. In the meantime, USCIS is mailing notices to El Salvador TPS recipients who remain eligible for TPS but have not yet received a renewal Employment Authorization Document, and whose TPS-based EAD application is still pending. For those individuals, USCIS is treating their expired TPS-based EADs as extended through September 9, 2026 — the last day of the designation.
The extension is targeted, not universal. It applies to recipients whose EADs carry category code A-12 or C-19 and whose renewal application is still sitting in the queue. USCIS says it will deliver the notices by mail and electronically to anyone who has a myUSCIS online account, so affected workers should check both their physical mailbox and their online account. That notice is the document to show an employer: it is what bridges the gap between an expired card and a renewal that has not arrived.
For employers, the practical effect is a reprieve on Form I-9 reverification for this specific group. A Salvadoran TPS employee holding an expired A-12 or C-19 card plus the USCIS notice retains employment authorization until September 9 — terminating or suspending that worker before then, on the assumption the expired card ends the story, risks a discrimination claim. What the notice does not do is extend anything past September 9. Unless a court order or a new DHS action intervenes, employment authorization tied solely to El Salvador’s TPS designation lapses on that date.
The update lands in a stretch of unusually volatile TPS administration, where work permits for several countries have been extended, allowed to lapse, and re-extended in short increments — often by litigation rather than by policy. Salvadoran TPS holders with a separate basis to remain and work in the United States — a pending or approved employment-based petition, a family-based filing, or another nonimmigrant status — should be talking to counsel now rather than in early September, because the runway is under a month.
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Source: USCIS (official announcement)