Trump Administration to Allow Thousands of Salvadorans to Remain in U.S. for Extra Year

Agreement would provide more time to seek a permanent solution for Salvadoran asylum seekers

The Trump administration extended temporary protected status for more than 250,000 Salvadorans living in the U.S. through January 2021, and will offer them an additional year of protection once a court battle over the matter concludes.

The extension was announced by El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, who has prioritized continued protection for Salvadorans in the U.S. in immigration-policy talks with Washington.

“They said it was impossible. That the Salvadoran Government could not do anything,” he wrote in a Twitter post that included a video of him announcing it jointly with Ronald Johnson, the U.S. ambassador to the country. “But after all, thank God, TPS was achieved.”

“This is an acknowledgment of the achievements and good work of the government of President Nayib Bukele,” Mr. Johnson said.

U.S. officials have insisted for months that a TPS extension wasn’t on the table in talks with El Salvador. The Trump administration said in 2018 that it planned to cancel the status that had allowed more than 200,000 Salvadoran immigrants to remain temporarily in the U.S., reversing nearly two decades of U.S. policy.

Temporary protected status is granted in cases where the U.S. government determines a population’s home country is too dangerous to return. The policy doesn’t allow foreigners living in the U.S. to stay permanently or become citizens, but it grants them a reprieve from deportation and allows them to work.

Though El Salvador’s murder rate has fallen in the past couple of years, it remains one of the highest in the world, and gang violence and extreme poverty are widespread.

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