About 170,000 Salvadorans living legally in the United States under Temporary Protected Status are approaching a September 9 expiration date without a final decision from the Trump administration on whether their protections will continue.
A U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services update on August 12 said El Salvador's TPS designation and related benefits are "scheduled to end" September 9.
However, USA Today reported that federal law requires the Department of Homeland Security to decide whether to extend or terminate a designation at least 60 days before it expires. If no determination is made, TPS automatically extends for six months.
For a September 9 termination to take effect, the administration would have needed to publish a notice in the Federal Register in July. It did not, leaving recipients awaiting clarification.
"Temporary Protected Status is exactly that—temporary," DHS spokesman Chandler Rebel told USA Today, arguing that the program has operated as "a de facto amnesty program" despite not being intended as a permanent status.
The uncertainty comes as the Trump administration has terminated TPS for 13 of the 17 countries covered when Trump returned to office in 2025. El Salvador's designation, first issued after two major earthquakes in 2001, is now the oldest continuously active TPS designation.
CNN recently outlined three possible outcomes: DHS could terminate the designation, extend it for another period or make no announcement before Sept. 9, triggering the automatic six-month extension.
Termination would expose recipients to the loss of work authorization and deportation protections after 25 years in the country. Many have since married, had U.S.-born children and established careers and businesses.
"These families are not new to the United States. We have been here for decades," José Palma, national coordinator of the National TPS Alliance and a Salvadoran TPS holder since 2001, told CNN.
The administration's recent handling of Haiti illustrates what could follow a termination. After the Supreme Court allowed the administration to end Haitian TPS in June, roughly 350,000 Haitians became vulnerable to arrest and removal. Deportation flights to Haiti are now expected to increase from monthly to weekly despite a State Department warning against travel to the country because of crime, kidnapping, terrorism and unrest.
For Salvadorans, however, the outcome remains unresolved. El Salvador President Nayib Bukele's close relationship with Trump, including cooperation on U.S. deportations, has added another political factor to the administration's pending decision.
