Salvadorans with TPS don’t know how long their protections will last. ‘Don’t panic,’ advocate says.

HOUSTON — José Palma’s face lights up when he remembers leaving El Salvador in 1998 at the age of 23 for the U.S., with the dream of working, learning English and building a family.

Twenty-eight years later, his life is divided between paperwork, community hearings, and a family full of love and varying immigration statuses: Palma, who lives in Houston, has U.S. citizen children — two of whom are still young — and a wife who’s a legal permanent resident, and he’s a beneficiary of Temporary Protected Status, which allows eligible immigrants from certain countries to live and work in the U.S. without fear of deportation.

As the national coordinator of the National TPS Alliance, Palma has been answering a lot of questions from Salvadorans with TPS: Their immigration protections were set to expire last week, but the Department of Homeland Security announced that Salvadorans will retain TPS protections — including work authorization — for now until an announcement is made at a later date.

But there’s uncertainty among Salvadoran TPS holders about what could come next and what happens now with work permits or driver’s licenses that have expired or are about to expire. Immigrants from countries that have…

Original source: https://www.nbcnews.com/