Temporary Protected Status (TPS) sits at the intersection of immigration policy, labor shortages, and the human realities HR professionals see every day.
At the base of the Statue of Liberty, Emma Lazarus gave this country a kind of mission statement for how we treat those who arrive at our shores:
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…”
That was not written as a legal brief. It was written as a moral one.
On December 10, 2025, U.S. District Judge Edward Chen reaffirmed that it was illegal for the Trump administration to abruptly remove protected status from Venezuelan immigrants, even as he stayed his own order for two weeks so the Ninth Circuit could decide whether to put it on hold again. This latest ruling is not the beginning of the story, it is the newest chapter in a long year of back and forth over the lives and work authorization of hundreds of thousands of people.
In recent months, I have sat with clients who are quietly trying to redesign staffing strategies because they are afraid of losing trusted TPS workers. I have listened to friends describe what it feels like when a loved one’s life is tied to an expiration date on a card and a court decision that could change at any moment. These conversations sit with me when I read headlines about “labor shortages” and “immigration policy.”
This decision, together with recent conversations I have had with clients trying to navigate workforce planning and friends whose loved ones live with this uncertainty every day, is what prompted me to write this article.
Today, as Temporary Protected Status (TPS) is repeatedly granted, revoked, litigated, and put on hold, hundreds of thousands of people who live, work, raise families, pay taxes, and serve in our workplaces are being treated as if they are disposable “labor” instead of human beings. HR professionals sit right in the middle of that tension.
This is not just an immigration story. It is a human story. It is also a workforce story that every employer and HR leader needs to understand.
Who TPS Holders Really Are In Our Workforce
TPS was created by Congress in 1990 to allow people from countries facing war, environmental disaster, or other extraordinary conditions to remain in the United States with work authorization and protection from deportation while it is unsafe for them to return.
On paper, that sounds temporary. In reality, for many, it has been a decades-long “temporary” status.
Among the three largest TPS groups from El Salvador, Honduras, and Haiti, hundreds of thousands of people are working in the United States in key industries like construction, restaurants and other food services, landscaping, caregiving, and education. These are not abstract categories. They are your hotel housekeepers, your line cooks, your grocery workers, your teachers’ aides, your caregivers, your crew members on construction sites that never seem to have enough skilled hands.
In many states, TPS workers are a significant share of entire national origin communities in specific sectors. For example:
Salvadoran TPS holders are deeply concentrated in construction.
Haitian TPS recipients are heavily represented in restaurants and other food services, grocery stores, and even elementary and secondary education roles that include teachers, administrators, and support staff.
These are experienced, long tenured employees with very high labor force participation rates who are well integrated into our economy and communities. They pay taxes, maintain mortgages, and support families and neighborhoods. Ending their status is not only a “loss of workers.” It is a loss of neighbors, homeowners, parents, and community members.
Economists and policy analysts have estimated that removing TPS recipients from the United States would lower Gross Domestic Product, reduce Social Security and Medicare contributions, and cost billions in deportation and turnover expenses for employers. In other words, these are not people who are “taking” from the system. They are very clearly contributing to it.
Policy Whiplash: The Venezuelan TPS Case
Layered on top of the economic and human reality of TPS is a new level of instability and fear. The December 10, 2025 decision is the latest example. Judge Edward Chen once again declared that removing protections from Venezuelan TPS holders in the way it was done was illegal, while at the same time staying his own order for two weeks to give the Ninth Circuit a chance to respond. In other words, even when the court affirms that the government acted unlawfully, people are still asked to wait and see if that protection will hold.
That ruling follows a year where the status of Venezuelan and Haitian TPS holders has been batted back and forth between the lower courts and the Supreme Court, with orders granted, stayed, partially reinstated, and then questioned again. What it looks like on paper is a series of procedural moves. What it feels like in real life is a constant swing between hope and fear.
If you are a TPS holder trying to keep a job, keep your children in school, and keep a roof over your head, this is not an interesting legal drama. It is policy whiplash. One week you are told your status is over. Another week a judge says it was illegal to end it. Then a higher court steps in with an order that throws everything back into doubt.
As HR professionals, we need to ask ourselves: what does it feel like to be an employee trying to show up, focus, and perform under that kind of uncertainty?
The Human Side That HR Sees First
When TPS is treated like a political lever instead of a humanitarian safeguard, the impacts show up at work long before they show up on a government spreadsheet.
As an HR consultant, I hear it in real time. Employers ask how to plan schedules, succession, and staffing when they do not know whether key team members will be allowed to keep working. Friends and community members share the emotional cost of checking the news every day to see if a court ruling has changed their family’s future overnight.
HR hears the questions first:
“If they take my work authorization, will I be fired the same day?”
“Do I tell my manager my EAD expires in six months, or stay quiet and hope for a renewal?”
“What happens to my health coverage if I am forced to stop working?”
“My child is a U.S. citizen. Do I put my house on the market now, just in case?”
We also see the impact on teams and organizations:
Supervisors anxious about losing high performing employees they have invested in for years.
Operations leaders worrying about how to staff critical roles in construction, food service, logistics, health care, and education if large segments of their workforce are suddenly ineligible to work.
Morale challenges when some employees feel unseen or unsafe at work because their very right to remain here is the subject of hostile rhetoric in the news.
From a compliance standpoint, HR is obligated to follow the law. We manage Form I 9, track expiration dates, and ensure that employment authorization is valid. But from a human standpoint, we also know that how we communicate, how we plan, and how we advocate will either add to the trauma or help to reduce it.
What Human Resources Can Do In This Moment
We cannot fix federal immigration policy from the HR department. But we can lead in very specific ways.
1. Center dignity in communication. If you employ TPS holders, do not wait for a crisis to communicate. Be honest that the legal environment is changing and complex, share what you know and what you do not yet know, and commit to giving as much notice as possible if any employment status could be impacted. Silence communicates indifference. Clear, compassionate communication communicates respect.
2. Avoid treating people as “just paperwork.” When an Employment Authorization Document has an expiration date, it is easy for that to be the only thing we see. Instead, I encourage HR and leaders to remember the larger story. This is a person who has likely lived here for many years, whose children may have only ever known the United States as home, who has roots in your community, and who has already demonstrated resilience simply by getting to and staying in TPS status.
3. Plan for continuity without turning people into “risks.” Good HR practice includes succession planning and cross training so that no role is dependent on a single individual. That is wise, and it should be used for everyone, not just those who happen to have a particular immigration status. The answer to policy uncertainty is stronger systems, not labeling people as liabilities.
4. Connect employees with trusted resources. HR should not act as immigration counsel, but we can connect employees with reputable legal aid organizations, employee assistance programs, and community resources that specialize in TPS and work authorization questions. Having a curated list ready before people ask is an act of care.
5. Use your voice inside the organization. HR often has the clearest view of how policy shifts affect real people and real operations. Share that insight with executive leadership. Help them understand what it would mean for your business, your customers, and your community if a large portion of your workforce is destabilized or forced out. Numbers matter, but so do stories.
A Call To Action: Using Our Collective Voice
This is also a moment for us to use our collective voice through business and professional associations that represent employers and HR leaders.
SHRM (the Society for Human Resource Management) is already advocating for immigration reform as one solution to the labor shortfall and has been clear that the expiration of TPS protections has negative impacts on the workforce. Their advocacy includes:
Lobbying for legislative change: Calling on Congress to modernize the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) to remove barriers to recruiting needed talent and to improve visa processing so employers can realistically plan and staff for the future.
Advocating for clear guidance: Formally urging the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to provide clear, consistent guidance on Form I 9 compliance when temporary immigration statuses such as TPS, DACA, and other work authorizations are extended, terminated, or changed.
Highlighting economic impact: Elevating research that shows nearly three in four employers believe increased legal immigration is essential for economic growth and competitiveness, and warning of the consequences of removing legally employed foreign workers, including TPS holders, from key sectors such as health care.
Promoting broader workforce solutions: Encouraging “skills first” strategies and hiring from untapped talent pools, such as veterans, individuals with disabilities, and older workers, alongside immigration solutions to address ongoing labor shortages.
But SHRM is not the only voice in this space, and it should not be the only one we look to or hold accountable.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been clear that legal immigration is essential to closing worker shortages and sustaining economic growth, calling for reforms that help businesses meet their workforce needs and initiatives like America Works that specifically link immigration reforms to solving the labor crisis.
The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) has warned that certain DHS rules around work authorization renewals could worsen an already severe manufacturing worker shortage, and has called for immigration reforms that increase employment based immigration and modernize temporary worker programs.
The American Hospital Association (AHA) and the American Medical Association (AMA) have both supported legislation to recapture immigrant visas for nurses and physicians and have urged DHS to reconsider policies, including steep H 1B visa fees, that would limit access to international medical talent in the middle of ongoing health care workforce shortages.
These organizations, along with local chambers of commerce, industry associations, and professional networks, are already acknowledging what HR sees every day: our workforce challenges are deeply connected to our immigration policies.
As employers and HR practitioners, we have both the right and the responsibility to insist that all of these associations keep TPS and humane, practical immigration policy at the center of their advocacy agendas, not at the edges. That means:
Asking SHRM, the Chamber, NAM, AHA, AMA, and your local business groups, “How are you actively protecting and stabilizing work authorization for people who are already legally in our workforce?”
Using SHRM’s Advocacy page and similar tools at the Chamber and other organizations to contact lawmakers, sharing the real impact of losing TPS talent in your industry and region.
Making it clear, as dues paying members and HR leaders, that immigration is not a fringe issue. It is a core workforce, equity, and economic stability issue.
You can learn more about SHRM’s efforts on the SHRM Advocacy page, and then go one step further: ask every association you belong to how they are showing up on this issue, and tell them what you are seeing in your workplace.
Revisiting Lady Liberty
Emma Lazarus wrote “The New Colossus” to help raise funds for the base of a statue that would become a global symbol of welcome for refugees and immigrants. Her words were later engraved on a plaque and placed inside the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, a daily reminder of what kind of country we said we wanted to be.
When we create an environment where people with Temporary Protected Status are constantly pulled between hope and fear, legality and limbo, we move further away from that promise.
As HR professionals, we stand at the intersection of law, business, and humanity every day. I know that business success and human decency are not tradeoffs. I know that the way we treat people in their most vulnerable moments reveals who we as HR and Business Leaders really are, as organizations and as a country.
The question for us is simple and profound:
When our “tired,” “poor,” and “huddled masses yearning to breathe free” walk through our onboarding doors, will our policies and our practices match the lamp beside that golden door, or will they quietly help to shut it?
My hope is that Human Resources, together with our professional and business associations, including SHRM and many others, will lean into the “human” first and help our organizations live up to the words we have already carved in bronze.
Subscribe to Lisa's LinkedIn Here: If conversations like this matter to you and you're committed to leading with both strategy and humanity, I invite you to stay connected with me on LinkedIn, where I continue sharing practical insights, real workplace challenges, and the evolving role of HR leadership.