“I feel numb,” Daysi Gonzalez wrote in an Instagram post this week. Gonzalez, 31, is a Salvadoran TPS recipient who had spent a month documenting life under a deadline. Then the Trump administration let it pass without ending her protection.
Temporary Protected Status for El Salvador was due to expire on Wednesday, September 9, 2026. Biden had extended it, just before leaving office, for 18 months to that date. The Department of Homeland Security did not terminate it. In a statement to NBC News, a spokesperson said that “an announcement on El Salvador’s TPS will be made at the appropriate time,” and that Salvadorans in the country under TPS keep their protection until then. NPR’s Vanessa Romo reported that the administration has not said whether it will extend the status later.
Nobody agrees on the headcount. The Associated Press, in the NBC report, puts the number at about 200,000 people who have been in the U.S. under TPS since 2001. NPR says roughly 170,000.
Silence as a safety net
The statute gives no specific time for expiry. If DHS takes no action, protections are automatically extended for six months. That happened in May, when about 11,000 Lebanese received another 180 days to stay and work.
It is rare in this administration. According to the AP, Homeland Security in Trump’s second term has ended TPS for more than 1 million people from 14 countries, among them Venezuela, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Afghanistan and Syria. In June the Supreme Court ruled that DHS acted within its authority in ending TPS for about 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians. NPR described the president’s power over the program as virtually unrestrained after that decision.
Who is covered
Congress created TPS in 1990 to prevent deportations to countries hit by natural disasters or civil strife. Salvadorans got it after two devastating earthquakes in 2001. Gonzalez arrived with her parents and older sister at six, on a tourist visa, a month before a 7.7 magnitude quake struck. She has never been back. She is now a partner at the political consulting firm where she began as an intern, and owns a home with her sister. “I’ve tried to adjust status in different ways,” she told NPR, “but there are very limited legal options to adjust your status and there is no pathway to citizenship for TPS.”
The advocacy group fwd.us estimates that more than 150,000 Salvadoran TPS holders add $5.4 billion a year to the U.S. economy and pay about $1.5 billion in federal and state taxes. Over 25 years they have had approximately 150,000 American children. Most holders have U.S.-born children, the AP noted. Remittances from Salvadorans in the U.S. reached $9.9 billion last year, 24% of El Salvador’s gross domestic product, according to its central bank.
The politics are unusual. President Nayib Bukele is a Trump ally on mass deportations, and El Salvador was among the first countries to take deportees. The AP said Bukele has not publicly said whether he asked for an extension after meeting Trump in Washington in July.
What advocates want from Congress
Jose Palma, national coordinator of the National TPS Alliance, said bills that would open a path to permanent residency exist, and that one is one Republican vote away from reaching the House floor. The National Salvadoran American Association is pushing for a shorter fix, another 18 months. Chairman Francisco Semiao argued that people cannot be told they have “60 days or 6 months” to leave when they must sell homes and businesses.
Sources
- Salvadoran TPS deadline nears, affecting 200,000 immigrants
- Trump administration allows TPS to continue for Salvadorans – for now
