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 protecting Haitians and Syrians from deportation, people from more than a dozen other countries, perhaps as many as an estimated 200,000 from El Salvador, will be watching the issue closely.

Many Salvadorans have been living in the United States under Temporary Protected Status for 25 years; This status allows those already in the country to remain on work permits in increments of up to 18 months unless the Secretary of Homeland Security deems conditions unsafe for return. President Donald Trump’s former secretary, Kristi Noem, ended TPS for all 12 counties that came up for renewal on her watch.

The court’s arguments on Wednesday will focus on whether the administration properly weighed conditions in Haiti and Syria when ending TPS and whether it biased immigrants of color. The decisions affected approximately 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians.

El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, holds a special place as a US ally among the leaders of 17 countries covering a universe of 1.3 million people designated by the TPS when Trump took office and which has more than doubled during Joe Biden’s presidency. Extending TPS would secure a line of remittances for people to send to their families back home, but few trust Trump to do any favors when it is renewed on September 9.

José Urías, who raised a family, became a father of two American children and founded a company that has built more than 150 homes in the Boston area, said he has not 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 majority have children born in the United States

Many have lost their jobs and fear detention, separation from American family members and deportation to a country they barely know.

“Our life is here, I’ve spent more of my life here than in El Salvador,” Urías, 47, said. “It’s like living your American Dream and then all of a sudden — just like that — you’re told your time is up, as if to say, ‘We don’t need you anymore,’ and someone tries to cut down everything you’ve built.”

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

He began remodeling houses, then building and selling them. He employs three people at a company that sells homes and works with seven contractors who employ dozens of people.

Urías married a Salvadoran who was also a TPS beneficiary. They have two sons living with them: a 19-year-old sophomore at Babson College in Boston; and a 13-year-old boy.

Two of his 13 siblings were born in the United States, and the others are permanent legal residents, like their parents. The entire family lives in the United States, and he said his two American sons will remain in the United States because it is their country and where they will find opportunities, even if their parents lose their TPS protections.

“You feel a sense of satisfaction because I was able to achieve so many things that I never dreamed of,” Urías said in Spanish. “Through struggle and sacrifice, of course, and by adapting to the way of life here, the local culture and language.”

What is TPS?

TPS was created by Congress in 1990 to prevent deportations to countries suffering from natural disasters or civil unrest. When Trump took office, Venezuelans were the largest beneficiary group, followed by Haitians and El Salvadorans.

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

Trump and Salvadoran Bukele share a militarized approach to combating transnational organized crime and harsh rhetoric around national security and law and order.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited El Salvador during his first visit in office and reached an agreement with Bukele on behalf of El Salvador. to accept the exiled of any nationality. Just a month later the USA sent Hundreds of Venezuelans To the infamous maximum security prison in El Salvador.

El Salvador has transformed 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 raised El Salvador’s travel warning to the highest level, citing a decline in violent crimes and homicides.

During the first Trump administration in 2019, Bukele asked Trump to extend the TPS. He stayed because there were lawsuits.

“We cannot rely solely on friendly relations,” said José Palma, a Salvadoran TPS holder and national coordinator of the National TPS Alliance, an advocacy group that has fought against ending TPS in federal courts for many countries. “Nothing is guaranteed in the United States right now with this administration.”

Although ending the TPS was an economic blow, Bukele did not publicly call for its extension. According to the central bank of El Salvador, Salvadorans in the United States sent $9.9 billion in remittances to El Salvador last year; this represents 24% of the country’s gross domestic product.

“I don’t think the fact that Bukele has actually carried out Trump’s priorities means that he will respond to Trump’s demands for a TPS extension,” said Rebecca Bill-Chavez, chief executive of Washington-based think tank Inter-American Dialogue. “I don’t think there are any guarantees.”

The only member of his family without permanent legal status

Lorena Zepeda, 58, crossed the Mexican border in 1991, three years after her mother left the country to look for 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 school floors, so he followed his mother’s lead and reunited with her in Los Angeles.

She earned her first job as a school cook and later worked the front desk at hotels, cared for the elderly, and worked as an organizer for the Central American Resource Center (CARECEN), now one of the largest immigrant rights organizations in the United States.

In February 2025, she married a Salvadoran TPS holder who is a green card holder. They have two children living at home: a 22-year-old son who is a college graduate, and a 20-year-old daughter who is studying to become a teacher.

Zepeda, who has been sending $200 to $400 a month to his sisters in El Salvador for more than three decades, is the only one in his family without permanent status in the United States. He is currently in the process of obtaining a permanent residence permit, but the process was postponed due to the rejection of his asylum application and the deportation order from 1999.

If TPS ends, he will be the only one in his family at risk of deportation. He said none of his children wanted to move to El Salvador.

“I feel pretty sad,” Zepeda said in Spanish. “Unfortunately, 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.