Temporary legal protections for about 200,000 immigrants from El Salvador are currently uncertain as the Trump administration approaches a deadline to decide whether to end them, similar to how it has done for hundreds of thousands of people from Venezuela, Haiti, and other countries. The program, known as Temporary Protected Status (TPS), was set to expire this week, but the law does not specify a strict timeline for its termination. If the Department of Homeland Security takes no action, protections are automatically extended for six months. This happened in May when protections for about 11,000 Lebanese immigrants were extended, allowing them to remain in the U.S. for another 180 days. TPS allows people already in the U.S. to stay legally and work with permits, provided the secretary of homeland security determines that conditions in their home country are unsafe for return. Since 2001, about 200,000 Salvadorans have lived in the U.S. under TPS, which can be renewed every 18 months. During President Donald Trump’s second term, the department ended TPS for over 1 million people from 14 countries, including El Salvador, Venezuela, Haiti, Honduras, and others. Only around 103,000 people from three countries remain protected, with termination dates set for October (Ukraine and Sudan) and November (Lebanon). The Supreme Court gave the Trump administration a major legal victory in June when it ruled that Homeland Security had the authority to end TPS for about 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians. This decision could affect nearly 1.3 million people from 17 countries who are currently under TPS. Established by Congress in 1990, TPS was created to protect people from being deported to countries suffering from natural disasters or civil unrest. El Salvador received TPS after two major earthquakes in 2001 that left many people homeless. President Joe Biden extended TPS for El Salvador in 2023 for 18 months, until September 2026. Many of the Salvadoran TPS holders have U.S.-born children and fear being separated from their families if they are detained or deported. While El Salvador has become one of the safest countries in the Americas since President Nayib Bukele ordered mass arrests in 2022, human rights groups have criticized the country’s prison system for arbitrary arrests, torture, and disappearances. Bukele, who has aligned with Trump’s policies, hosted deportees at a large prison in El Salvador known as CECOT. Despite these changes, it is unclear if Bukele has formally requested an extension of TPS from the Trump administration.