Donald Trump's administration has said it is ending the temporary residency permit program, which allows some 60,000 Haitians to live and work in the United States since 2010. Haiti's lawyers quickly criticized the decision.
The Trump administration will set a deadline on Monday to determine the fate of some 200,000 Salvadorans living in the United States under an interim legal immigration status nearly two decades ago.
The US Department of Homeland Security said Kirsten Nielsen had not yet decided whether to end the comments, which would force those people to return home or become illegal immigrants if they were to remain without legal protection.
Recent moves by President Trump, who prefers legal immigration at minimum levels, indicate that the interests of the Salvadorans are in danger.
According to the Congressional Research Center, the administration will phase out the temporary protections granted by the republican and democratic administrations to 437,000 people from 10 countries who have suffered from armed conflicts, earthquakes and other natural disasters. The Internal Security Agency announced in November that it had ended the temporary protection status (TPS) for some 59,000 Haitians legally living in the United States since the massive earthquake in 2010 in their country. They must return home by 2019
The US administration also abolished the temporary protection status of 5,300 Nicaraguan citizens who were given this protection for the first time in 1999 after the devastation caused by Hurricane Mitch. They must leave their homes by January 2019
While the US administration has extended the legal protection status of some 86,000 Hondurans who have been affected by Hurricane Mitch for another six months, the administration has indicated that they may eventually be removed from the program.
Some believe that the time has come for the United States to begin to phase out the temporary protection system established by Congress in 1990 as a short-term solution for those affected by the world's catastrophic events. It must be renewed every 18 months
"The letter T / in / TPS symbolizes the temporary thing, and the Salvadorans have been allowed to stay for almost 17 years, which exceeds any limits to a reasonable definition of a term," said Ira Mehlman, Temporary, "but after living in the United States for a long time, many Salvadorans believe the United States should find another way to let them stay.
The Salvadoran embassy in Washington estimates that 97 per cent of Salvadorans who benefit from the service are over 24 years of age working and paying taxes, and more than half have homes. Salvadorans in the region have also generated 192,000 children, all of whom are US citizens, according to a report by the Center for Migration Studies.
The 42-year-old Edwin Morillo was awarded a TPS grant shortly after his country was devastated by a 7.6-magnitude earthquake that killed nearly 1,000 people and destroyed more than 100,000 homes. Morillo and his wife have two daughters born in the United States and said the entire community will suffer during the long weekend waiting for any word to decide their future.
"He knows that protection can not last forever," said Murillo, a restaurant steward for a hotel chain in Dallas, Texas, a beneficiary of his and his wife from the Temporary Protection Program. But it is not human to send 400,000 people - beneficiaries and their children from the program to a country that has not yet recovered and is suffering from gang violence.
"Congress should look at humanity and preserve the dignity of these families and give them a solution," said Morello, who works for the National Council of the National TPS Alliance. "There are children born in this country, and these families have done their best to serve this country, and 17 years later, it must be abandoned?"
The US Chamber of Commerce wrote to the administration, citing the magnitude of the financial disaster the United States would face if many members of the workforce were forced to leave. In October, the Chamber noted that large numbers had been severely affected by Salvadorans benefiting from protection and were working in construction industries due to hurricanes in 2017