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By Dan Gooding
Associate News Editor
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Salvadoran immigrants in the United States with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) will continue to have protections for now, despite their status having been set to expire Wednesday, the Trump administration said.
In a statement to Newsweek, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed that El Salvador's TPS designation would not lapse yet, despite the original deadline and the ongoing efforts to end the status for other countries in recent months.
“An announcement on El Salvador’s TPS will be made at the appropriate time," a DHS spokesperson said. "Until such announcement is made, Salvadoran individuals present in the U.S. under TPS retain protection.”
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Under the Trump administration, the U.S. has forged stronger ties with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, including striking a deal to send deportees from Venezuela and elsewhere to El Salvador's high-security CECOT prison.
"There should be concerns about repatriating Salvadorans during the State of Exception and suspension of civil liberties, but I suspect that’s a secondary concern for the administration given the environments to which other former TPS holders have been returned," Christine J. Wade, chair of the Department of Political Science at Washington College, told Newsweek.
"At an individual level, nearly 200,000 Salvadorans are left in limbo in the U.S. It creates enormous uncertainty for people have been here for decades, many of whom are deeply integrated into their communities and may own property and/or businesses."
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Wade said that under parole requirements for TPS, any number of Salvadorans may not have been able to travel home since they first left.
"The benefit for El Salvador is that those families may continue to send much-needed remittances and the country gets additional time to prepare for a significant influx of Salvadorans returning from abroad, which would easily overwhelm the country’s infrastructure," she said.
Newsweek reached out to the Salvadoran government for comment via email.
Wider Efforts to End TPS
After President Donald Trump returned to the White House, DHS began efforts to end TPS for most countries that had benefited from the program in recent decades, including Venezuela, Haiti, and Afghanistan.
TPS allows immigrants from select countries in the U.S. without legal status to apply for protections from deportation, including permission to work legally. For some, DHS has renewed the status multiple times, deciding whether to extend it every 18 months.
The current administration argues the program has been abused and that conditions which originally sparked TPS for different countries, including conflicts and environmental disasters, have improved enough that hundreds of thousands of immigrants can return to their home countries.
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Efforts to end the statuses drew legal challenges which made their way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Justices sided with the administration in June, paving the way for all injunctions against DHS' efforts to be lifted.
El Salvador appeared to be next on the list, with the status set to expire September 9, 2026, affecting over 175,000 immigrants.
Salvadorans are one of the largest immigrant groups from Central America in the U.S., per Census Bureau data, with the biggest populations concentrated in California, Texas, Maryland and New York, and major communities in the Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., metropolitan areas.
Ahead of the deadline, Rebecca Shi, CEO of American Business Immigration Coalition Action (ABIC Action), said in a statement shared with Newsweek, “For more than 25 years, Salvadoran TPS holders have worked legally in this country, paid taxes, raised families, bought homes and helped keep American businesses and essential industries running.
"Now, 152,000 workers are at risk of being forced out of the U.S. workforce," Shi said. "These are experienced, vetted workers who are already deeply rooted in our economy, contributing $5.4 billion annually and paying $1.5 billion in federal, state and local taxes. Forcing them off the job destabilizes American businesses and spike prices for all."
Which Countries Still Have TPS?
El Salvador is one of four countries still covered by TPS, down from over a dozen at the start of the second Trump administration.
Ukraine, Sudan, and Lebanon still have the status, with Ukraine's and Sudan's due to expire October 19.
The Trump administration extended Lebanon's TPS for six months earlier in the year, through November 27.
What Happens Next
The Trump administration has not formally reversed course on ending protections for Salvadorans.
Instead, DHS has allowed the deadline to arrive without announcing the determination needed to resolve their status, potentially triggering a statutory extension while leaving beneficiaries and employers waiting for clear documentation.
"With no clarity from the Department of Homeland Security on when they will make a final decision on TPS, over 200,000 Salvadorans remain in limbo about the future of their legal status in the United States," Maureen Meyer, VP of Programs at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) told Newsweek.
"This extension would be a welcome short-term reprieve, but it does not address the uncertainty TPS holders face about their longer-term prospects of remaining in the country legally."
The central question is now whether this is a temporary administrative delay, a legally mandated six-month reprieve, or the first sign that El Salvador will be treated differently from the countries whose protections the administration has moved swiftly to terminate.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Gabe Whisnant and Sam Wilson.
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