From the Law Office of James Montana PLLC, practicing attorneys James Montana, Esq., Janice Chen, Esq., and Austen Soare, Esq. offer immigration-focused legal advice.
This sponsored column is by Law Office of James Montana PLLC. All questions about it should be directed to James Montana, Esq., Janice Chen, Esq., and Victoria Khaydar, Esq., practicing attorneys at The Law Office of James Montana PLLC, an immigration-focused law firm located in Falls Church, Virginia. The legal information given here is general in nature. If you want legal advice, contact us for an appointment.
Temporary Protected Status is supposed to be temporary. Congress built it that way on purpose. Congress also built it to be predictable, so that the people who rely on it, and the employers who hire them, know where they stand. Congress also did that on purpose. The statute sets deadlines and requires the government to publish its decisions.
In September, the unstoppable force of TPS elimination met the immovable object of “Here come the midterms!” and the Trump Administration simply blinked, but in such a way that nobody will be happy: neither the federal judiciary, nor immigration hawks, nor, God knows, TPS beneficiaries themselves.
How TPS is supposed to work
The TPS statute, 8 U.S.C. § 1254a, is not complicated. At least 60 days before a country’s designation expires, the Secretary of Homeland Security must review conditions in that country. He must then decide whether to extend or terminate the designation, and publish that decision in the Federal Register. A termination cannot take effect until at least 60 days after that notice is published.
Congress also anticipated a Secretary who doesn’t get around to deciding. Here is the text, in relevant part (our highlights in bold):
If the Attorney General does not determine under subparagraph (A) that a foreign state no longer meets the conditions for designation under paragraph (1) by the time required under such subparagraph, the period of designation of the foreign state is extended for an additional period of 6 months (or, in the discretion of the Attorney General, a period of 12 or 18 months).
El Salvador: 25 years, and then nothing
El Salvador has been designated for TPS since the earthquakes of 2001. Its most recent extension, published in January 2025, ran through September 9, 2026. The deadline for the Secretary’s decision was therefore July 11, 2026.
July 11 came and went, and so did September 9, with no Federal Register notice of any kind. Instead, the USCIS El Salvador TPS page now carries this alert:
An announcement on El Salvador’s TPS will be made at the appropriate time. Until such announcement is made, Salvadoran individuals present in the U.S. under TPS retain protection including work authorization.
“At the appropriate time.” The appropriate time was July 11!
Our reading of the statute is that El Salvador’s designation has been extended by operation of law, for at least six months, to March 9, 2027. The government hasn’t said so, and it may claim that a termination decision was made quietly and never announced. Even on that theory, the statute requires that a termination be published, and it cannot take effect until 60 days after publication. Either way, no Salvadoran TPS holder should lose status without at least 60 days’ public notice in the Federal Register.