Temporary protections for about 200,000 Salvadoran immigrants are in limbo as deadline nears

MIAMI — Temporary legal protections for about 200,000 immigrants from El Salvador were in limbo Wednesday as a deadline neared for the Trump administration to decide if they should end, as they have for hundreds of thousands from Venezuela, Haiti and other countries.

The Temporary Protected Status designation expires Wednesday but the statute does not give a specific time for when that happens. If the Department of Homeland Security takes no action, protections are automatically extended for six months. This rare reprieve happened in May, when the protections were automatically extended to about 11,000 Lebanese, allowing them to stay and work in the U.S. for another 180 days.

DHS said in a statement Wednesday that it will announce a decision on El Salvador “at the appropriate time” and that protections would remain in place until then.

About 200,000 people from El Salvador have lived in the U.S. since 2001 under TPS, which allows people already in the country to remain with work permits for renewable periods of up to 18 months, if the secretary of homeland security determines conditions are unsafe for return. They are eligible for work permits.

During President Donald Trump’s second term, Homeland Security has ended TPS…

Original source: https://www.nbcnews.com/health