Trump administration silence has 200,000 Salvadoran immigrants hoping they're protected

MIAMI (AP) — A deadline for the Trump administration to decide whether about 200,000 immigrants from El Salvador can remain protected from deportation has passed without any public announcement, raising hopes among many for another six-month extension while also sowing confusion.The Department of Homeland Security has been quiet about its plans, leaving attorneys and advocates scrambling to decipher what might happen next to Salvadorans who have been raising families in the U.S. for decades.On Thursday, Homeland Security issued a statement saying the department would make an announcement “at an appropriate time” and that Temporary Protected Status for El Salvador would stay in effect until then. The department issued the same statement Wednesday.“Let’s be clear: this is not an official extension or decision by DHS as to the fate of TPS for El Salvador,” Ben Johnson, who directs the American Immigration Lawyers Association, posted Wednesday on social media.

The Trump administration is leaving TPS holders, their families and their employers in limbo, he said.Some attorneys are cautioning that the administration could eliminate the protections without making a public statement, or announce a decision at any time.Living in limbo after all these yearsThe absence of an announcement has raised hopes that Salvadoran immigrants might be spared the fates of hundreds of thousands of immigrants from other countries whose protected status has ended during President Donald Trump’s second term. But the lack of clarity is also harrowing.“Facing this uncertainty is frustrating and painful," said Doris Landaverde, who was 21 when she crossed the U.S. border illegally in December 2000, seeking better job opportunities.

A few months later, she obtained TPS status and has worked legally ever since, mostly cleaning at Harvard University, she said.Now a 47-year-old single mother, Ladaverde said she and her two U.S.-born daughters all consider this country home. The housing and health care of these American citizens depends on her income, and without TPS she could lose her job, she said."We have lived here legally for decades, and that is hard to erase,” she said. “I feel angry; we have done everything we were told to do legally.”Will Trump make an exception for his ally?El Salvador, once one of the most violent places in the world due to organized crime, has become one of the saf…

“I feel angry; we have done everything we were told to do legally.”More than 1 million people now subject to deportationIn Trump’s second term, Homeland Security has ended TPS for more than 1 million people from more tha…