Salvadorans worry about deportations ahead of this week’s TPS deadline

Maryland Matters · WTOP News · September 7, 2026

Daysi Gonzalez, whose family is from El Salvador, was among those who spoke outside the Capitol. (Photo by Mitchell Miller/WTOP) By Mitchell Miller

Tens of thousands of people from El Salvador, including many in Maryland, could face deportation if the Trump administration decides to end their Temporary Protected Status this week.

Democratic members of Congress and advocates are calling for the administration to extend Temporary Protected Status for Salvadorans, which has been in effect in the U.S. for 25 years. It is currently scheduled to end on Wednesday .

“It would be mass chaos if we did not extend Salvadoran TPS,” Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-Va.) said Wednesday at a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol. “It’d be chaotic not just for the Salvadoran community, but for every single American.”

Subramanyam pointed out that Salvadorans make major contributions to the region’s economy and workforce.

“They’ve built homes, raised families, paid taxes and revitalized our local economies,” he said.

Last month, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services notified Salvadorans that their protection from deportation is scheduled to expire Sept. 9. Subramanyam and other Democratic lawmakers are backing legislation that would extend the protection for more than 170,000 Salvadorans nationwide for 18 months.

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But it’s unclear if that will take place, since under the law, the Department of Homeland Security must decide whether to extend or end TPS at least 60 days before it expires.

Subramanyam said approval of legislation to extend the protection would give Salvadorans time to manage their work and personal issues, as they await final word on whether they will be allowed to stay in the United States.

The administration has said Temporary Protected Status has been abused and that it was not supposed to become an amnesty program, allowing people to permanently stay in the U.S.

Loss of Temporary Protected Status worries local residents

Daysi Gonzalez, whose family is from El Salvador, was among those who spoke outside the Capitol with Subramanyam. She said she came to the U.S. with her parents when she was 5 years old. Now 31, she has sought for years to try to legally remain in the country and is under Temporary Protected Status.

“I was brought here as a toddler, but in a few days I’ll be forced to leave the only home I know,” Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez, who lives in Virginia, said she hopes “that the nearly 200,000 TPS recipients from El Salvador and the thousands of other TPS recipients from other countries can stay here in our homes…. That we’re treated with dignity and compassion, that our families won’t be needlessly separated and our communities torn apart.”

The D.C. area has the nation’s second-largest population of Salvadorans, behind the Los Angeles area.

The administration has ended Temporary Protected Status for more than a dozen countries since President Donald Trump returned to office in 2025. Protection was most recently terminated for Haitians, Ethiopians and Syrians.

The family of a 20-year-old Haitian immigrant who lost Temporary Protected Status after reuniting with his parents in Ohio said they believe he died by suicide this week .

Family members said Pierre Damas Bel parked on the side of a highway in Ohio and they believe he walked into traffic to take his life. He came to the U.S. in 2024 and had graduated from high school with honors, while serving in the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps.

His parents said he had planned to attend college, with hopes of studying medicine.

Read the full story at Maryland Matters