Another group of immigrants may be on the verge of losing deportation protections
By Catherine E. Shoichet, Ione Molinares, CNN
Washington (CNN) — Soledad Miranda’s eyes fill with tears as she packs boxes for a move she’s hoping she won’t have to make.
“I feel defeated,” she says.
For 25 years, the program known as Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, has allowed Miranda and around 170,000 other Salvadorans to work legally in the United States and protected them from deportation. Now many are on edge awaiting the Trump administration’s decision on their futures.
“All of us are just holding our breath,” says Abel Nuñez, executive director of the Central American Resource Center in Washington.
Some Salvadorans had hoped the rapport between Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele and US President Donald Trump could pave the way for a reprieve, even as administration officials have revoked deportation protections for many other nationalities.
But the Department of Homeland Security hasn’t yet made an announcement on TPS for El Salvador. And on Wednesday, which had been the scheduled ending date for Salvadorans’ protections, a written statement from a DHS spokesperson provided few answers.
“An announcement on El Salvador’s TPS will be made at the appropriate time,” the spokesperson said. “Until such announcement is made, Salvadoran individuals present in the U.S. under TPS retain protection.”
How long those protections will last, and what will happen to those Salvadorans’ work permits in the meantime, remains unclear. The most recent guidance from US Citizenship and Immigration Services, issued earlier this month, says those permits expire September 9.
Miranda, 52, came to the US in 1997 and built a life for herself and her 16-year-old daughter, who is a US citizen. Working as a cleaner in a government building, she saved enough money for an apartment she says she can no longer afford if her work authorization expires. So she’s started packing treasured mementos from more than 30 years of her life.
“Now all of that is in this box,” Miranda tells CNN en Español as she gestures at an empty wall in her apartment. “It’s over.”
Still, even as she fears the worst, she’s among a group of advocates pushing for a solution at protests and vigils in Washington, where Salvadorans make up the capital region’s largest foreign-born population.
But she says time is running out – and so is hope.
Some Salvadorans hoped their president would step in
A June Supreme Court decision cleared the way for the Trump administration to end TPS for hundreds of thousands of people.
Administration officials have consistently criticized TPS and touted their efforts to strip the deportation protections they argue had become a de facto amnesty program for undocumented immigrants that was never intended by Congress. So far, under the second Trump administration, officials have revoked TPS for most immigrants who had it, terminating protections for 13 countries. As of mid-August, the protections remained in place for just four countries, including El Salvador, according to a recent Pew Research Center analysis.
Recently, the end of TPS has left hundreds of thousands of Haitians in the US vulnerable to deportation – and advocates say fears are growing amid reports of intensifying enforcement.
Like Haitians, Salvadoran TPS holders were first granted protections after a devastating earthquake hit their country. And like Haitians, Salvadoran TPS holders also have a sizeable presence in the US, with the number of beneficiaries estimated at around 170,000 people, many of whom now have US citizen children.
Some Salvadorans have speculated that the positive relationship between Trump and Bukele, who’s made other border security and immigration deals with the US, could be an opening for authorities to take a different approach this time around.
“Some of them still feel that the relationship between…Bukele and Trump will save the day,” Nuñez says.
“I think that’s wishful thinking. But hope is the last thing we lose,” says Jaime Contreras. He’s executive vice president of the Service Employee International Union’s 32BJ Capital Area District, which represents property maintenance workers, doormen, security officers and other workers. He estimates that hundreds of union members in the DC area, and thousands nationally, would be among the many that will lose their jobs if TPS ends for Salvadorans — a move he argues would be cruel to them and economically devastating for the country.
“It doesn’t make any economic sense to take away legal status from people who are documented and can work and are part of our workforce,” he says.
Ending TPS could have an even greater economic impact in El Salvador, where remittances, the money immigrants send home, make up more than 25% of the GDP, according to the World Bank.
And during the first Trump administration, Bukele was outspoken about his discussions with US officials to find ways for Salvadorans on TPS to remain in the US. But he hasn’t made a public push for the extension of TPS for Salvadorans under the second Trump administration.
CNN has reached out to the Salvadoran Embassy in Washington and the Central American country’s immigration office for comment.
Waiting for word on what happens next
Asked by reporters Tuesday about the administration’s plans for Salvadorans with TPS, White House border czar Tom Homan shrugged.
“Well, we’ll have to see what happens. That’s a secretary (of Homeland Security) judgement,” he said. “TPS, Temporary Protected Status, means temporary. And let’s face it, El Salvador is a much safer country than it’s ever been now with the new president over there.”
With no clear announcement from US officials about what’s next, uncertainty has been weighing on many Salvadorans, Nuñez says.
In the meantime, he says, his organization has been advising Salvadorans to consult with trusted advisers or immigration attorneys to see if they have any legal immigration pathways.
“Right now, it’s the quiet before the storm,” he says.
As she waits for word, Miranda says she’s most worried about her daughter’s future. She’s a standout student who’s just beginning her junior year of high school.
“I already had my life planned out — that I would leave of my own free will, not by force,” she says, “and now I won’t be able to see my daughter achieve her dreams, the way I achieved mine.”
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CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez and CNN en Español’s Mauricio Torres contributed to this report.
