McGovern Continues Demanding Answers from DHS on El Salvador TPS

WASHINGTON —Congressman James P. McGovern (D-MA), Ranking Member of the House Rules Committee and Co-Chair of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, is leading 43 colleagues in again demanding answers from the Department of Homeland Security over the future of Temporary Protected Status for approximately 200,000 Salvadorans living in the United States. In July, McGovern led 80 Members of Congress in urging DHS to extend TPS for El Salvador, warning that terminating the designation would harm the American economy and potentially return people to a country facing severe human rights and economic crises. The letter detailed deteriorating human rights conditions in El Salvador, including mass arbitrary detentions, forced disappearances, deaths in custody, and reports that people deported to the country have been incarcerated upon arrival without judicial review or due process. More than three months after the lawmakers first wrote to DHS, approximately 200,000 Salvadoran TPS holders and their families remain in limbo. “The Department of Homeland Security has had months to answer our straightforward questions. Salvadoran TPS holders should not have to live their lives wondering every day whether the government is going to rip the rug out from under them,” said McGovern. In their follow-up letter sent on October 22, the lawmakers note that the administration failed to respond to their July letter urging an extension of TPS for Salvadorans—even as the deadline to extend the designation has come and gone. “On July 9th, 2026, we sent the attached letter to your office urging you to extend the Temporary Protected Status designation for El Salvador. As of October 22, 2026, we have still not received a response,” the lawmakers wrote. “Since we sent that letter, the initial expiration date of the designation has passed. The Department of Homeland Security has provided no further information as to whether the TPS designation for El Salvador will be cancelled or extended. As a result, over 200,000 Salvadorans are currently living in limbo.” Salvadoran TPS holders have lived and worked lawfully in the United States for decades. Nine out of ten participate in the U.S. workforce, contributing billions of dollars to the economy and paying approximately $1.5 billion in federal, state, and local taxes each year. More than 150,000 U.S.-citizen children have a Salvadoran TPS-holder parent in the American workforce. “Keeping hundreds of thousands of people in this kind of legal limbo is cruel and wrong,” McGovern added. “They deserve to know whether they can keep working, supporting their families, and living in the communities they have called home for decades. Silence is not an acceptable answer.” The full text of the October 22 follow-up letter is available here . The July 9 letter, signed by 80 Members of Congress, is available here . ### McGovern is a leading voice on U.S. relations with El Salvador in Congress. Earlier this year, he led 27 Members of Congress in demanding information about Salvadorans deported by the United States and held incommunicado in El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison, citing serious concerns about due process, enforced disappearance, and documented abuses in Salvadoran detention facilities. Leading human rights organizations have documented mass arbitrary detention, torture, enforced disappearances, deaths in custody, and serious due process violations under the Bukele government, some of which may constitute crimes against humanity . . McGovern has also organized multiple congressional hearings into Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s suspension of civil liberties and rule of law which has been used to target journalists, human rights defenders, trade unionists, and political opponents. In 1989, McGovern led the investigation into the murders of 6 Jesuit Priests, their housekeeper, and her daughter in San Salvador — exposing that U.S. funding had been used to train the death squad that carried out the executions.