US District Judge Nathaniel Gorton in Boston ruled in favor of a coalition of immigrant rights organizations and labor unions that filed a lawsuit to prevent US Citizenship and Immigration Services from enacting a series of policies aimed at enforcing new immigration restrictions passed by Congress last year.
Gorton’s ruling will remain in effect until he decides whether to issue a longer-term injunction against the Trump administration’s policy, with a decision expected by August 5. USCIS did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
The significant tax and spending bill, passed by a Republican-led Congress in July 2025, introduced for the first time fees for asylum applications and limited employment authorization for individuals with Temporary Protected Status, or TPS.
This designation allows migrants from countries affected by war, natural disasters, or other crises to live and work in the United States while it remains unsafe for them to return home.
The Trump administration, as part of a hardline immigration strategy, has aimed to terminate TPS for individuals from over a dozen nations. The US Supreme Court permitted this action last month concerning thousands of Haitian and Syrian immigrants.
The plaintiffs in a lawsuit brought by the liberal legal group Democracy Forward contended that USCIS had unlawfully enforced the new law’s terms and needed to suspend the policies, especially one that could lead to thousands of TPS beneficiaries from El Salvador, Sudan, and Ukraine potentially losing their work authorization starting Wednesday.
Among these policies are provisions that the plaintiffs argue improperly reduce the duration of work authorization for TPS recipients by retroactively applying the new restrictions to individuals from El Salvador, Sudan, and Ukraine.
Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, stated that Gorton’s ruling protects thousands of families from losing their livelihoods while the courts evaluate the legality of the administration’s policies.
While the administration has been terminating TPS for other nations, it extended TPS for individuals from these three countries in January. TPS remains valid for El Salvador until September 9, and for Sudan and Ukraine until October 19.
The plaintiffs asserted that the new USCIS policies were illegitimate since the public was not given notice or an opportunity to comment before their implementation, as mandated by the Administrative Procedure Act, and that they retroactively applied the 2025 law’s TPS work authorization requirements without legal authorization.
On Tuesday, Gorton chose not to prevent USCIS from collecting the fee for the time being but stated that the agency cannot revoke work permits or impose other penalties on those who do not pay it.
The case was filed in Boston, a favored venue for litigants contesting Trump’s policies, and was assigned to one of the few judges not appointed by a Democrat, Gorton, who was appointed by Republican President George H.W. Bush.
