Appeals court pauses Venezuelan TPS restoration for two weeks, delaying return set for Friday
Editorial illustration — Press Pass USAA federal appeals court reversed course Tuesday and said it will pause for two weeks an order that would have restored Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans on Friday — giving the government time to ask the Supreme Court for longer relief before anyone's status changes.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said Tuesday, November 3, that it will grant a 14-day administrative stay beginning Friday, November 6, Bloomberg Law and Law360 reported. That is the same day the Supreme Court's own earlier stay of the case expires. A 14-day pause starting November 6 would run to about November 20.
The move came just four days after the same court refused the government's request to keep the restoration on hold. On Friday, October 30, a three-judge panel — Judges Kim McLane Wardlaw, Salvador Mendoza Jr. and Anthony D. Johnstone — denied the government's motion for a stay pending appeal and also turned down its fallback request for an administrative stay of at least 21 days, in a one-page order that gave no reasons. That decision had cleared the way for TPS protections to return on November 6 while the larger case continues, and the panel said it would set an expedited schedule to hear the appeal on the merits.
Tuesday's administrative stay does not decide the underlying case. It temporarily pauses a district court order, issued September 5, 2025, by U.S. District Judge Edward Chen in National TPS Alliance v. Mullin, which found that then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem exceeded her authority when she vacated an extension of Venezuela's TPS designation and then terminated it. The Supreme Court put that district court order on hold on October 3, 2025, without explanation, which let the termination take effect; that stay is set to expire Friday, November 6.
The legal backdrop shifted again this year. On June 25, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Mullin v. Doe that the TPS statute bars judicial review of non-constitutional challenges to the secretary's designation, extension and termination decisions. On October 5, 2026, the court vacated an earlier Ninth Circuit decision in the Venezuela case and sent it back for another look in light of that ruling. The government argued that decision deprived federal courts of jurisdiction over the plaintiffs' challenge; the TPS holders countered that courts retain authority to consider whether the secretary's Venezuela-related orders exceeded her statutory authority.
TPS allows foreign nationals to remain in the United States for up to 18 months, with eligibility for work authorization, when conditions such as armed conflict or natural disaster prevent a safe return. It does not grant permanent residency. The scale is large: the Department of Homeland Security's February 2025 termination notice counted 348,202 people registered under Venezuela's 2023 designation alone, and plaintiffs describe the total affected as hundreds of thousands. Counsel for the plaintiffs said after the October 30 order that the termination had stripped more than half a million people of lawful status.
What happens next is now a race against the new clock. The government can use the 14-day window to seek longer relief from the Supreme Court before the pause runs out, and the Ninth Circuit is expected to set an expedited briefing schedule on the merits. The October 30 order did not spell out which documents would count as proof of restored status or how holders would show it to employers, and implementation details will depend on how the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services act if and when the restoration takes effect.
For now, Venezuelans who lost TPS in 2025 remain without the restored protections, and the restoration that had been set for Friday will not arrive on schedule — at least until the two-week pause ends or the Supreme Court acts first.
Sources: Bloomberg Law, "Ninth Circuit Pauses Order Restoring Venezuelans' TPS Relief" (Nov. 3, 2026); Law360, "9th Circ. Backtracks On Venezuela TPS Reinstatement" (Nov. 3, 2026); UCLA Law / Miñana Center, "Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Clears Way to Reestablish TPS Protections for Hundreds of Thousands of Venezuelans" (Oct. 30, 2026); U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, order in National TPS Alliance v. Mullin, No. 25-5724 (Oct. 30, 2026).
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