The Biden administration announced on Friday it will provide protections to hundreds of thousands of El Salvadoran nationals living in the United States, citing stormy weather and heavy rain that took place in the country.
The roughly 234,000 El Salvadoran beneficiaries of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) will be allowed to register for an 18-month extension, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced on Friday. The move marks the latest last-minute push to extend deportation protections to illegal migrants and other foreign nationals living in the U.S before President-elect Donald Trump resumes office and gets to work on his sweeping immigration enforcement agenda.
“After reviewing the country conditions in El Salvador and consulting with interagency partners, it was determined that an 18-month TPS extension is warranted because of continued conditions from environmental disasters that resulted in a substantial, but temporary, disruption of living conditions in the affected areas of El Salvador,” the DHS announcement stated.
“El Salvador’s extension of TPS is based on geological and weather events, including significant storms and heavy rainfall in 2023 and 2024, that continue to affect areas heavily impacted by the earthquakes in 2001,” the statement continued.
First created by the federal government in 1990, TPS provides certain deportation protections and work eligibility to those who receive its designation, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). The administration may designate TPS for foreign nationals residing in the U.S. whose home countries are experiencing any number of situations that may make it dangerous for them to return, such as a natural disaster or military conflict.
There are currently 17 countries with a TPS designation, according to USCIS. El Salvadorans — who’ve enjoyed TPS since 2001 — would’ve seen their designation end on March 9, but the extension announced Friday means they can now remain in the U.S. until Sept. 9, 2026. The Biden administration announced TPS for Lebanese nationals in October, and other designations may come before President Joe Biden leaves office later in January.
A number of Democratic lawmakers have pleaded with Biden to dole out TPS extensions before he leaves office, calling the remaining days he has left a “critical window” before the Trump administration comes into power and cracks down on illegal immigration.
Trump — who has promised to conduct the largest deportation operation in the country’s history, among numerous other hawkish immigration enforcement proposals — has also publicly expressed interest in revoking the TPS program upon his return to office. The former president attempted to end TPS for El Salvador in 2020, but those efforts were held up in court in the waning days of his first term.
A common critique of the program is that it is “temporary” in name only, with extensions happening continuously. Salvadorans, for example, have been enjoying protected status for over 20 years.
A longstanding misconception about TPS is that it is a form of legalization, as CBS host Margaret Brennan attempted to suggest during a “fact check” of Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance amid the vice presidential debate. Several immigration experts that spoke with the Daily Caller News Foundation confirmed that, while TPS provides certain deportation protections and work eligibility, it does not grant legal status to any individual.
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