Nathaniel Gorton, a federal judge of the United States, issued an emergency order on Tuesday blocking the Trump administration measures that added obstacles to asylum requests and canceled work permits for people under TPS. The order stays in place until August 5, giving asylum seekers and TPS beneficiaries a temporary pause while the court weighs whether the policies can stand.
Democracy Forward said the decision means thousands of families will not lose their livelihoods while the legality of the measures is decided. The group said that without the emergency intervention, many TPS beneficiaries would have been unable to work starting July 22, and asylum seekers would have faced rejection of their applications and immediate termination of employment authorization.
TPS from Haiti and Venezuela
The order affects asylum seekers from all countries and TPS beneficiaries from Haití and Venezuela in particular. The challenged measures included fees to request asylum and the elimination of employment authorization for TPS beneficiaries, both part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that Trump signed and Congress approved in July.
Skye Perryman, the president and chief executive officer of Democracy Forward, said, “La decisión de la corte garantiza que miles de familias no pierdan sus medios de vida ni la tranquilidad mientras se determina la legalidad de estas políticas”. That relief is immediate, but it is also temporary: the judge has only paused the measures, not resolved their future.
Adelys Ferro on asylum fees
Adelys Ferro, executive director of Venezuelan American Caucus, said the ruling matters most for asylum seekers with pending cases who were going to lose their work permits or face expedited deportation for not paying the new annual $100 fee imposed by the Trump administration. Ferro said those asylum seekers will now have the opportunity to pay the fee and continue their processes while keeping authorization to work.
Ferro’s remarks point to the part of the case that hits fastest in daily life: people already navigating asylum filings were facing a fee deadline that could have separated work authorization from a pending case. For them, the order does more than freeze a policy; it keeps the existing process open while the court reviews whether the new requirements can survive.
November 2026 and August 5
Haitian TPS beneficiaries who risked losing their work permits on July 24 will be able to keep them until November 2026, when the last TPS renewal for Haitian citizens approved by Joe Biden expires. For Venezuelan immigrants, the relief applies only to a small group that filed TPS renewal before February 5, 2025 and had work permits valid until October 2026.
The Venezuelan American Caucus estimated that between 5,000 and 10,000 Venezuelans still have this status and could benefit. On August 5, Gorton is expected to decide whether the suspension of these measures continues in the long term, and that ruling will determine whether this emergency pause becomes something more durable or ends when the order expires.
