More than 170,000 Salvadorans could face major immigration uncertainty if the Trump administration does not extend the protection, raising new questions about Nayib Bukele’s close relationship with Donald Trump.
For more than two decades, hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans living in the United States have relied on Temporary Protected Status to remain legally in the country and work.
That protection is now coming to an end.
The Trump administration has announced that Temporary Protected Status for El Salvador will terminate on September 9, 2026, ending a program that has protected Salvadorans in the United States since devastating earthquakes prompted the original designation in 2001. USCIS currently says the designation and related benefits are scheduled to terminate on that date.
The decision raises a broader question: Could Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s unusually close relationship with President Donald Trump have made a difference—and, if so, why didn’t it?
The question is particularly significant because Bukele has emerged as one of Trump’s closest partners in Latin America. His government has cooperated extensively with Washington on migration and security, including accepting deportees from the United States.
For Salvadorans living under TPS, however, that relationship has not translated into another extension.
A long-standing protection
El Salvador’s TPS designation dates back to 2001, after earthquakes devastated the country. The program allows eligible Salvadorans already in the United States to remain temporarily and receive employment authorization.
The Biden administration extended the designation in January 2025 for another 18 months, through September 9, 2026. At the time, DHS said environmental conditions in El Salvador continued to prevent people from safely returning. The extension covered roughly 232,000 current TPS beneficiaries eligible to re-register.
But that decision was made just days before Trump returned to the White House.
Trump’s immigration agenda has since moved in the opposite direction.
His administration has pursued the termination of TPS protections for numerous countries, and the Supreme Court’s June 2026 ruling made it more difficult for lower courts to block DHS decisions to end TPS designations.
El Salvador was therefore facing a difficult test.
The Bukele factor
Bukele had something that other foreign leaders might not have: a remarkably close relationship with Trump.
During Trump’s first administration, the United States announced plans to terminate Salvadoran TPS. Bukele publicly pushed for the protection to continue. The termination became entangled in litigation, and the Biden administration eventually rescinded the termination and extended the designation.
This time, however, the political circumstances were different.
Bukele became an important partner for Trump’s immigration strategy. El Salvador agreed to accept deportees from the United States, including people who were not Salvadoran nationals, and the two governments developed close cooperation on migration and security.
That cooperation led some observers to wonder whether Salvadoran TPS might receive different treatment from other countries.
But the latest decision suggests otherwise.
What did Bukele get in return?
That question may become one of the most interesting parts of the story.
The Trump administration has demanded greater cooperation from foreign governments on deportations. Bukele has provided that cooperation.
Yet Salvadorans who have lived in the United States for decades are now facing the loss of the protection that allowed them to remain and work legally.
The contrast is striking: El Salvador has become one of Washington’s closest partners on immigration enforcement at precisely the moment that Salvadorans in the United States are losing a major immigration protection.
There is no public evidence that the Trump administration promised Bukele an extension of TPS in exchange for his cooperation. Nor is there evidence that the termination was intended as a punishment for El Salvador.
But the timing raises questions about the limits of the Bukele-Trump alliance.
The economic stakes for El Salvador
The consequences extend beyond the United States.
Salvadoran families depend heavily on money sent home by relatives living abroad. Remittances are a critical part of El Salvador’s economy, and losing the ability of tens of thousands of TPS holders to remain and work legally in the United States could eventually affect those flows.
For Bukele, that creates a difficult political calculation.
He has cultivated his relationship with Trump and has made cooperation with Washington a central component of his international strategy.
At the same time, a large Salvadoran diaspora benefits his country’s economy.
The loss of TPS could therefore create pressure on Bukele from Salvadorans at home and abroad—even as his government maintains close ties with Trump.
More than 170,000 people face uncertainty
Advocacy groups estimate that more than 170,000 Salvadorans remain protected by TPS. Other government and news sources have cited figures around 200,000 or more, depending on the date and methodology.
Many have lived in the United States for 25 years or more. They have bought homes, started businesses, raised children and established deep ties to their communities.
For them, September 9 is not simply an expiration date on an immigration document.
It could mark the beginning of a period in which they must determine whether they have another legal path to remain in the United States—or whether they will have to leave a country where they have spent most of their adult lives.
The question now
The question that once seemed hypothetical—whether Bukele’s relationship with Trump could help preserve Salvadoran TPS—has effectively become a question about why that relationship did not produce an extension.
Bukele has been willing to help Trump on one of the president’s central priorities: immigration enforcement.
Trump, meanwhile, has rewarded El Salvador with an unusually close diplomatic relationship.
But when it came to TPS, the administration ultimately chose the same direction it has taken with many other countries: termination rather than renewal.
For Salvadorans in the United States, September 9 is now the deadline.
And for Bukele, the end of TPS could become an uncomfortable test of just how much political influence his relationship with Trump actually provides.
