{"id":83175,"date":"2026-08-12T23:41:58","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T06:41:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=83175"},"modified":"2026-08-12T23:41:58","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T06:41:58","slug":"fear-anxiety-and-resolve-as-end-of-tps-protections-loom-for-salvadorans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=83175","title":{"rendered":"Fear, Anxiety and Resolve as End of TPS Protections Loom for Salvadorans"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By<\/span>Araceli Martinez<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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LOS ANGELES \u2013 Daily life for Isela Garc\u00eda has alternated between worry, stress and anxiety ever since she first learned that temporary legal protections for Salvadorans living in the US would end September 9.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I worry about most is losing my status from one day to the next and running the risk of being deported,\u201d said Garc\u00eda. \u201cIf they put me in a detention center, I don\u2019t know how long they can keep me there, and from what I\u2019ve heard, it\u2019s terrible.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Trump administration announced last year that it was ending Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for the more than 200,000 Salvadorans in the country, many of whom have lived in the US for more than two decades.<\/p>\n

The administration has targeted a total of\u00a013 countries<\/a>\u00a0out of 17 for termination of their TPS designations, affecting some 1.3 million people. Nine countries \u2014\u00a0including Nicaragua, Venezuela, Haiti and Honduras \u2014\u00a0have already seen their TPS designations ended.<\/p>\n

TPS provides holders with temporary relief from deportation as well as work authorization. The program was approved on bi-partisan lines by Congress as part of the Immigration Act of 1990.<\/p>\n

Los Angeles is home to one of the largest Salvadoran communities in the country. Garc\u00eda, 36, came to the city when she was just 5 years old. At 17 she and her mother both received TPS for the first time.<\/p>\n

\u201cTPS allowed me to be productive,\u201d said Garc\u00eda, who graduated from CalState Los Angeles and now works as an administrator for a seafood importer in Carson, about 13 miles south of Downtown LA.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore Trump, we lived in peace. When he arrived, that\u2019s when the anxiety and worry began. No other president has tried to revoke TPS, and we\u2019ve never had to fight in court or appeal to representatives to renew the protections,\u201d said Garc\u00eda. \u201cOur lives have completely changed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S. government first granted TPS designation for El Salvador in 2011 following two devastating earthquakes that killed upwards of 1000 people. Since then, Salvadorans have raised families here, purchased homes and started businesses.<\/p>\n

Many now face the possibility that all they\u2019ve worked for and built could be lost.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve lived here my whole life. I\u2019ve studied and worked here. Being deported to El Salvador would mean starting from zero all over again in a country I don\u2019t know,\u201d said Garc\u00eda, who credited the non-profit Central American Resource Center (CARECEN) with providing \u201ca lot of emotional support\u201d during this period.<\/p>\n

Garc\u00eda also pointed to the work of groups like the National TPS Alliance (of which CARECEN is a member), which recently sponsored a bill seeking residency for TPS holders.<\/p>\n

The bill, the American Dream and Promise Act (HR 1589) remains stalled in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives. A group of Democratic legislators began circulating a petition in June to force a vote on the bill on the floor of the House, though even in the unlikely event it passes the bill would almost certainly be vetoed by the president.<\/p>\n

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Lorena Zepeda and her husband, Walter Ventura discuss how the ending of TPS has impacted their lives and their plan to continue fighting for residency.<\/em><\/p>\n

Lorena Zepeda is a mother of two children, both born in Los Angeles. She\u2019s held TPS since 2001 and began working with CARECEN full-time two years ago after several years as a volunteer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re fearful, but we hold on to hope because we\u2019ve fought in Washington for many years, we\u2019ve marched, visited with lawmakers. We\u2019ve done everything,\u201d said Zepeda, whose husband, Orlando and son, Benjamin Zepeda, then 14, were plaintiffs in a 2018 lawsuit challenging the first Trump administration\u2019s effort to end the TPS program.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is sadness, there is fear because at this moment no one is secure, everyone is at risk with this administration, even if they were born here,\u201d she added. \u201cThey\u2019ll detain you\u00a0just for protesting<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Walter Ventura, fear of losing TPS is exacerbated by the reality that with it he could also lose his commercial driver\u2019s license. Ventura has spent years as a truck driver at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and says he is the sole breadwinner in his home.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t know what could happen when I go out,\u201d noted Ventura, who said his own son had been harassed by men appearing to be federal immigration agents. \u201cThey wanted to take my son, who is a U.S. citizen and works for FEDEX. They didn\u2019t believe that he was born in the United States, nor did they show identification.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ventura says the men referred to his son as a \u201cwet\u201d \u2014 a racial pejorative aimed at immigrants from Mexico and Central America \u2014\u00a0because of the \u201ccolor of his dark skin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recent reporting has documented numerous instances in which federal immigration agents appear to\u00a0use racist language<\/a>\u00a0during enforcement operations. The ACLU reports incidents of racial profiling have\u00a0skyrocketed<\/a>\u00a0since a 2025 SCOTUS ruling cleared the way for federal agents to consider race and ethnicity during immigration stops.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring the pandemic, truck drivers were recognized as essential workers because we risked our lives to ship food, clothes, and all the other things people needed. We never stopped working,\u201d said Ventura. \u201cAnd now they turn their backs on us.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the organization FWD.us, TPS beneficiaries contribute approximately $29 billion annually to the U.S. economy, in addition to paying $7.8 billion in combined federal, payroll, state, and local taxes.<\/p>\n

Work authorization for Salvadoran TPS holders officially ended August 5 though the country\u2019s underlying designation remains in effect until September 9.<\/p>\n

\u201cTPS has allowed thousands of Salvadoran families to live, work, and contribute to this country for more than two decades,\u201d said Martha Ar\u00e9valo, executive director of CARECEN-LA. \u201cNot renewing this protection would put thousands of families and communities who now call the United States home at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ByAraceli Martinez Aug 12, 2026 LOS...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ca-local"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=83175"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83176,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83175\/revisions\/83176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=83175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=83175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=83175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}