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Thousands of Salvadoran immigrants nationwide faced uncertainty after the federal government failed to decide by a Wednesday deadline whether to extend or terminate their longtime temporary protections against deportation.

Those protections, known as Temporary Protected Status or TPS, allow immigrants to obtain work permits and by Thursday some Salvadorans had already been fired from their jobs. Others who had been let go were reinstated after the Trump administration clarified that an announcement on TPS for Salvadorans would come “at the appropriate time” and that they would retain work authorization in the meantime.

Employers also expressed uncertainty about whether the statement was enough to legally keep Salvadoran employees on their payroll. Those who lost their jobs worked across the U.S. in construction, at hotels and as janitors.

Some took the announcement that work authorizations remained in place — made late Wednesday by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services — as a cause for hope, while others saw it as prolonged mental torture. There are 170,000 Salvadoran TPS holders, including 36,000 living in California.

Asked for further guidance on Thursday, Homeland Security sent a link to the USCIS website.

Advocates with the National TPS Alliance distributed a letter including the administration’s announcement for TPS holders to share with their employers and stating that “any decision to terminate could not take effect for a minimum of 60 days.” The letter seemed to help, as advocates reported that some fired employees had been able to return to work.

Not everyone was reinstated. Jose Ramirez reported to his construction job in Santa Monica for the last time on Wednesday.

The 63-year-old had been legally working in the U.S. since 2001, when TPS was first extended to Salvadoran immigrants.

Jose Ramirez, a TPS holder from El Salvador, speaks during a news conference in Los Angeles on Thursday.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

He had been in the country for six years before that, and constantly struggled to find stable work. The work permit was a lifeline. He’d dedicated the last 25 years to construction, during which he fathered three daughters and set roots in Compton.

Still, his boss said Ramirez could no longer present for work Thursday.

“I’ve worked on buildings that reach the skies of Los Angeles,” Ramirez said. “I’ve contributed economically and lent my labor to this great country.”

Ramirez’s boss said his job would be available to him, but he’d need to show proof of an active work permit. A notice or a letter is not enough, Ramirez said.

The USCIS announcement was “a ray of hope that they will give us an extension,” Ramirez said. “But, it’s just not certain. Anything can happen. We’re just praying to God that the government will make it official.”

Signs at a news conference to provide an update on the status of TPS designation for Salvadoran immigrants.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Ending TPS would be a shock to El Salvador’s economy, where remittances from Salvadorans in the U.S. make up nearly a quarter of the nation’s GDP — nearly $10 billion last year. In 2019, President Nayib Bukele, an ally of President Trump, publicly called on the U.S. to extend TPS for Salvadoran immigrants.

More recently, Bukele has embraced Trump’s deportation agenda, including by accepting controversial deals to house foreign detainees in the country’s mega-prison. The number of people deported to El Salvador nearly doubled in the first three months of 2026.

The decision by the Department of Homeland Security to extend or terminate TPS typically has been made at least 60 days before the designation was set to expire. DHS can extend the program for a six, 12 or 18-month period or decide to cancel the designation.

But the Trump administration has delayed announcements, including some made days after the designation expired. A Supreme Court ruling in June determined that the Homeland Security secretary has final authority over the program and cut down the ability for advocates to sue.

Lauren Truslow, CEO of 3D Enviro, a Virginia company that does identification and abatement of hazardous materials, said the lack of a decision on TPS has been stressful and costly. Three of her 30 employees are TPS holders from El Salvador. Another, who is married to a Salvadoran TPS holder, told her his family plans to leave the country if the program is canceled.

3D Enviro is a federal contractor, and Truslow said that her employees’ driver’s licenses and federal badges expired on Wednesday.

“How do they continue to work for me?” she said. “No one seems to know the answer to that. They can’t get into federal facilities without valid ID. Them showing a memo from USCIS is not going to cut it.”

During a news conference organized on Thursday by the Central American Resource Center of Los Angeles, other immigrant rights groups and local elected officials, speakers urged TPS holders to form a plan for their families and schedule a legal consultation with a trusted lawyer. They also called on the administration to issue a decision on TPS for El Salvador and a pathway to permanent legal status.

“Salvadoran families deserve clear, timely and trustworthy information from the government,” said Martha Arévalo, CARECEN’s executive director. “As we gather this morning, we don’t have an extension for TPS. … What we have is another waiting game and a renewed limbo for families.”

“We are going to fight this,” vowed Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.

In a statement, Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) called the USCIS announcement “clear as mud.”

“Once again, the Trump Administration is punishing immigrants who have followed the rules with chaos, uncertainty, and cruelty,” he wrote.

Also in attendance at the news conference was Carmen Sanchez, 49, who works the night janitorial shift cleaning offices in Los Angeles. She said many of her co-workers who were also protected under TPS were told not to return to work after Wednesday.

Sanchez planned to report to work Thursday evening, but was sure she’d suffer the same fate. She said she has three adult children in El Salvador and is helping two of them pay for college.

“If we lose our work permit, we lose our job. We lose our stability. We lose everything,” Sanchez said. “We’re being kept on this thread of extensions, and we don’t know when that thread is going to break.”

Retail employees in Los Angeles working irregular schedules, called in for shifts with just a few hours’ notice, got some relief years ago in the form of a city law requiring large retailers to give them notice of their schedules at least two weeks in advance.

Now, that 2024 law could be expanded to encompass the city’s fast-food industry, whose precarious workforce — largely women from immigrant communities — has long raised concerns over unstable schedules that they say make it difficult to plan their finances, child care, medical appointments and other obligations.

The L.A. City Council’s economic development and jobs committee late last month approved the ordinance, which also would establish a mandatory six-hour paid training to educate workers on minimum wage laws and other labor protections. It goes to the full council for a vote on Tuesday.

The proposal is backed by a statewide union of fast-food workers — established in 2024 — that is affiliated with the Service Employees International Union, which for years has helped organize fast-food employee walkouts over wage theft, safety and pay.

The California Fast Food Workers Union‘s organizing director, Maria Maldonado, said workers often are unaware of their rights regarding heat exposure and other risky conditions common in kitchens. The training, she said, would show them they have recourse and city support for reporting employers when conditions are unsafe.

“If you know there is support to enforce the law, we are going to see a difference in the industry,” Maldonado said.

City Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez first introduced the ordinance in 2024.

Although worker-friendly proposals usually are ultimately backed by the L.A. City Council, the process often is lengthy, with business interests lobbying against such measures.

The California Restaurant Assn. wrote in a letter to the council that the ordinance would greatly increase costs in a state that already is expensive to operate in and that it unfairly singles out an industry that has long served as a successful pathway to business ownership for minority entrepreneurs.

In the letter, business groups took issue with third parties administering worker training, arguing that labor groups could use them to prime the workforce for union campaigns.

The ordinance would “not only duplicate existing law but also force neighborhood restaurants to pay thousands of dollars so groups with ulterior motives can hold team members as a captive audience,” the letter said.

The group also argued that training would create third-party access to workers’ data even as many immigrant workers are fearful of heightened immigration enforcement, noting that the training might “require employers to disclose sensitive information to outside entities, creating serious privacy risks.”

A report commissioned by McDonald’s, compiled by the firm Beacon Economics and Pepperdine University, surveyed some 1,200 workers in L.A. County and found that a majority, about 70.6%, opposed the proposed paid training, while 29.4% said they would want such training, the survey said.

California’s fast-food industry employs more than 750,000 people and is a growing sector, according to state data. The state fast-food union has argued that local and state protections are crucial.