Haitians, Syrians aren't the only immigrants watching US Supreme Court arguments on temporary status

When the U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments on the Trump administration's plans to stop shielding Haitians and Syrians from deportation, people from more than dozen other countries will pay close attention, perhaps none more than an estimated 200,000 from El Salvador.

Many Salvadorans have lived in the United States for 25 years under Temporary Protected Status, which allows those already in the country to stay with work permits in increments of up to 18 months as long as the Homeland Security secretary deems conditions unsafe for return. President Donald Trump's former secretary, Kristi Noem, ended TPS for all 12 countries that came up for renewal under her watch.

Court arguments Wednesday will focus on whether the administration properly weighed conditions in Haiti and Syria when it ended TPS and if it prejudiced non-white immigrants. The decisions affected about 350.000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians.

El Salvador's president, Nayib Bukele, occupies a special place as a U.S. ally among the leaders of the 17 countries that were designated with TPS when Trump took office, covering a universe of 1.3 million people that more than doubled during Joe Biden's presidency. Extending TPS would secure a pipeline of remittances that people send to family back home, but few are counting on Trump to deliver any favors when it is up for renewal Sept. 9.

José Urías, who started a family, fathered two American children and founded a company that has built more than 150 homes in the Boston area, said he hasn't lost hope

“It's not guaranteed, but it's not impossible either,” he said in an interview from his home in Boston.

Salvadorans with TPS have been living and working legally in the United States since at least 2001, when two major earthquakes that hit the Central American country resulted in special status. The vast majority have children born in the U.S.

Many have lost their jobs and fear being detained, separated from their American family members, and deported to a country they barely know.

“Our life is based here, I have lived more of my life here than in El Salvador,” said Urías, 47. “It’s like living out your American Dream, and then suddenly — just like that — being told your time is up, as if to say, ‘We don’t need you anymore,’ and having someone try to cut away everything you’ve built.”

After crossing the border from Mexico in 1994, he worked delivering furniture, washing dishes, and cooking in restaurants, before opening his construction business about 18 years ago.

First he started remodeling houses, and then building and selling them. He employs three people at a firm that sells houses and works with seven contractors that employ dozens of people.

Urías married a Salvadoran who is a TPS beneficiary too. They have two sons who live with them — a 19-year-old sophomore at Babson College in Boston; and a 13-year-old.

Two of his 13 siblings were born in the U.S. and the others have permanent legal residency as well as his parents. The whole family lives in the U.S., and he said that his two American sons will stay in the U.S because it is their country and the place where they will find opportunities, even if the parents loose their TPS protections.

“You feel a sense of fulfillment, because I’ve been able to attain so many things I never imagined,” Urías said in Spanish. “Obviously through struggle and sacrifice, and by adapting to the lifestyle here — to the local culture and the language.”

What is TPS?

TPS was created by Congress in 1990 to prevent deportations to countries suffering from natural disasters or civil strife. When Trump took office, Venezuelans comprised the largest group of beneficiaries, followed by Haitians and Salvadorans.

Trump has ended TPS for about 1 million people from countries including Venezuela, Honduras, Nicaragua and Afghanistan.

Trump and El Salvador's Bukele share a militarized approach to fight transnational organized crime and hard rhetoric around national security and law and order.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited El Salvador during his first trip in office, securing a deal with Bukele for El Salvador to accept deportees of any nationality. Barely a month later, the U.S. sent hundreds of Venezuelans to a notorious maximum-security prison in El Salvador.

El Salvador has swung from one of the most violent places in the world to one of the safest countries in the Americas since Bukele ordered mass arrests in 2022. In April 2025, the State Department upgraded El Salvador’s travel advisory to its highest level, citing a drop in violent crimes and murders.

In 2019, during the first Trump administration, Bukele asked Trump to extend TPS. It remained because there were lawsuits.

“We cannot rely solely on friendly relations,” said José Palma, a Salvadoran TPS holder and national coordinator at the National TPS Alliance, an advocacy group that has fought the termination of TPS for several countries at the federal courts. “Nothing can be guaranteed with this administration in the United States at this moment.”

Bukele has not publicly requested an extension of TPS, even though ending it could be an economic blow. Salvadorans in the U.S. sent $9.9 billion in remittances to El Salvador last year, representing 24% of country’s gross domestic product, according to El Salvador’s central bank.

“I don’t think that the fact that Bukele has really delivered on Trump’s priorities necessarily means that Trump will respond to TPS extension requests,” said Rebecca Bill-Chavez, chief executive officer of the Washington-based think tank Inter-American Dialogue. “I don’t think there is any guarantee.”

She is the only member of her family with no permanent legal status

Lorena Zepeda, 58, crossed the Mexican border in 1991, three years after her mother left their home country in search of a job in the United States that would allow her to send money to her six children. The only job Zepeda could find in El Salvador was sweeping floors in schools, so she followed her mother's path and reunited with her in Los Angeles.

She got her first job cooking at a school and later worked at the front desk in hotels, caring for the elderly, and now as an organizer at the Central American Resource Center (CARECEN), one of the largest immigrant-rights organizations in the U.S.

She married a Salvadoran TPS holder, who became a green card holder in February 2025. They have two children who live in their home — a 22-year-old son and college graduate and a 20-year-old daughter who is studying to become a teacher.

Zepeda, who has sent $200 to $400 monthly to sisters in El Salvador for more than three decades, is the only one in her family who does not have permanent status in the U.S. She is still in the process of obtaining permanent residency, but the process has been delayed because her asylum application was denied and she has a deportation order from 1999.

If TPS ends, she would be the only one in her family at risk of deportation. She said that none of her children want to move to El Salvador.

“I feel quite sad,” Zepeda said in Spanish. “Sadly, we know that I am not protected, but I have faith in God.”

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Associated Press writer Marcos Aleman contributed from San Salvador, El Salvador.