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Under a policy set to take effect Sunday, the U.S. government could strip young immigrants of their status as unaccompanied minors, causing them to lose special protections when they apply for asylum and making them more likely to be deported.

The plan is laid out in an internal memorandum sent May 31 by John Lafferty, chief of the asylum division at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and detailed in subsequent guidance, both obtained by The Times. The shift in policy involves when federal officials determine whether a young migrant is an unaccompanied minor.

According to the memos, an asylum officer with USCIS will have to assess whether the individual at the time of filing for asylum lacked lawful immigration status, was younger than 18 and had no parent or legal guardian in the United States available to provide care and physical custody.

Unaccompanied minors who are in federal custody are often released to sponsors in the United States such as a parent or close relative and could be living with them at the time they file their application — meaning that many may not be considered to be unaccompanied minors under this new policy. From October 2018 to May 2019, more than 46,000 minors were released to sponsors, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

If the children are found no longer to be unaccompanied minors, they will not be entitled to certain special protections, including an asylum interview with a USCIS officer instead of having to make their case in an immigration court setting.

“USCIS continues to take actions to ensure that we carry out our duties in a manner that is fully in line with the letter of the law,” agency spokeswoman Jessica Collins said in a statement. “Ultimately, Congress must reform the law to address the underlying issues fueling the border crisis and encouraging unaccompanied minors to make the dangerous journey to the United States.”

In recent years, USCIS officers have considered an asylum applicant to be an unaccompanied minor if that was what Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Customs and Border Protection agents had determined when they first had contact with the migrant.

Under this new policy, which rescinds an Obama-era memorandum, USCIS officers will independently determine whether an individual was an unaccompanied minor when they filed their application.

USCIS is “basically relitigating whether or not a child at the time of filing was an unaccompanied minor or not,” said John Amaya, who served as the counselor to the director of USCIS from 2014 to 2015.

Judge Ashley Tabaddor, the president of the National Assn. of Immigration Judges, said that the new policy could potentially have “a profound effect on the children’s ability to seek asylum.”

“The asylum officer interview is a much less adversarial process that is thought to give the child a better and more comfortable setting,” she said.

U.S. border patrol agents attend to a minor who had just swam across the Rio Grande River from Mexico to Del Rio, Texas.

(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Federal asylum officers have been rushing to process as many unaccompanied minor applications as possible before the change takes effect Sunday, USCIS personnel told The Times, speaking on condition of anonymity to protect against professional retaliation.

The change is the latest in the Trump administration’s efforts to make it more difficult for immigrants, including children, to seek asylum.

It comes during a week in which the acting head of CBP announced his resignation amid reports that his agency held some 300 children in unsanitary conditions in a remote Border Patrol station in Clint, Texas. A photograph showing the bodies of a father and his nearly 2-year-old daughter lying face down in the Rio Grande along the border also has gone viral in recent days.

Migrant deaths have continued along the border this year with the number crossing illegally surging to nearly 600,000, more than half of them families.

Federal asylum officers themselves have criticized Trump, saying his policies are putting people, including children, at risk.

On Wednesday, a union representing officers filed a brief in support of a lawsuit against a Trump policy forcing asylum seekers back to Mexico to await their court proceedings in the United States. The policy “abandons our tradition of providing a safe haven to the persecuted and violates our international and domestic legal obligations,” the brief states.

USCIS acting Director Ken Cuccinelli, an anti-immigration hard-liner who often casts doubt on asylum seekers as engaging in fraud, slammed his own employees, saying the brief was “an attempt by the union to score short-term political points.”

Michael Knowles, president of the union, told The Times his members were “taking the risk” because “we’re being asked to do things that are wrong, as a matter of conscience, and our training as federal employees.”

The policy taking effect Sunday reverts to procedures implemented under the 2008 Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. At that time, asylum officers made “independent factual inquiries” to determine whether individuals filing applications met the criteria to be designated as unaccompanied minors and were thus under the jurisdiction of USCIS.

Ur Jaddou, a chief counsel to USCIS under President Obama, said that new procedures in 2013 allowing USCIS to adopt prior determinations made by ICE and CBP were implemented because “it was a waste of time and confusing” for USCIS to make a decision on unaccompanied minor status after one was made by other DHS branches.

“This new memo goes backward,” Jaddou said.

Lafferty, who wrote the memo, presented the change as one in keeping with a October 2018 decision by the Justice Department’s Board of Immigration Appeals. The decision dealt with whether USCIS or an immigration judge has initial jurisdiction over the asylum application of an individual who was previously determined to be an unaccompanied minor but had turned 18 before filing their application. The board held that the immigration judge has jurisdiction to determine that the individual no longer qualified as a minor at the time of filing.

The new procedures may put legal clinics that work with these minors in a tough position. Patricia Ortiz, program director for the Esperanza Immigrant Rights Project, said some of their clients are released from federal custody very close to their 18th birthday, and attorneys may not have enough time to file their application before they become adults.

Unaccompanied minors are currently exempt from the standing one-year deadline to file asylum applications. Ortiz worries that if her clients are no longer considered to be unaccompanied minors, the fact they have not applied within one year would jeopardize their applications. She said some don’t apply within a year because they don’t have the support necessary to complete an application or may only be comfortable disclosing asylum facts after months of therapy.

Once they are no longer able to have their cases heard by asylum officers, she said, children could be kept in legal limbo with the rest of those whose cases are backlogged in immigration court. This wait could make it more difficult for them to give testimony that helps their cases.

“Children forget,” she said. “They forget details; they forget what happened.”

Miller reported from Los Angeles and O’Toole from Washington.

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.”