This story has been translated and edited from its original Spanish version.

Jose Lainez got up early to go to the Consulate of El Salvador in Las Vegas last Friday. He wanted to be among the first ones to get assistance, because he figured the place would be packed with people.

He was right.

The consular office in Las Vegas was operating at full capacity a few days after the federal government announced the rules for the final extension of the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program that has allowed thousands of Salvadoran immigrants relief from deportation and permission to work in this country for the past two decades. About 200,000 immigrants from El Salvador who have legal status through TPS will be subject to deportation or must return home after the Trump administration decided to terminate the program effective Sept. 9, 2019.

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that if applicants want to maintain their TPS until the program’s end, they must re-register during a 60-day window that runs from Jan. 18 through March 19.

El Salvador’s Foreign Affairs Ministry announced Saturday that its embassy in Washington and its network of 18 consulates in the United States assisted more than 10,000 TPS recipients in their renewal process, excluding those who had already renewed directly through USCIS. That’s far above pace from 2016, when 560 people renewed their application in the first four days after enrollment opened.

The consulate in Las Vegas noted that it assisted more than 130 people with their TPS renewal on a single Friday. It has extended its hours of operation, opening its doors on Saturdays to handle the demand.

Lainez, who is a kitchen employee at one of the casinos located on Las Vegas Boulevard, told The Nevada Independent in Spanish that he preferred to start the renewal process as soon as possible so he could have a valid work permit and continue to support his family.

"This is hard. Imagine — they take TPS away from us, and I don't know what's going to happen to us," Lainez said. "We must keep fighting to see if they grant us legal residency status in the future. And if they don’t, either way, we will have to go back to El Salvador because there will be no other option."

Hefty fees

TPS doesn’t grant automatic legal residency status or citizenship, so immigration experts have recommended that people seek legal alternatives to stay in the U.S. before their permits expire.

Each time beneficiaries from the 10 countries that currently have the TPS designation — including El Salvador — try to renew their permit, they have to comply with a series of eligibility requirements, such as continuously residing in the United States since the date specified for their country and not having any felony convictions or two or more misdemeanor convictions.

Tirso Sermeño, the consul of El Salvador in Las Vegas, said via email that the TPS renewal process has never been free of charge. But the price to renew a permit has been escalating.

A report by the Congressional Research Service showed that in 1994, the fee for the I-765 form — an application for employment authorization — was $70. Now, it’s $410.

TPS beneficiaries must also pay $85 for fingerprint biometrics. In total, people seeking to renew TPS must pay $495 per person.

Michael Kagan, director of the Immigration Clinic at UNLV, said applicants for TPS renewal can apply for fee waivers from USCIS. The agency said it carefully “considers the merits of each fee waiver request before making a decision.”

Sermeño said that while nothing is certain, El Salvador is working on a creating a fund that could pay fees for people who can’t afford the price of renewal.

Many are just paying the fee, even when it hurts.

"Even if we had to pay $1,000 dollars, we'd have to do it," said Jose Maldonado, who has been a beneficiary of the program since 2001. "In exchange for the benefits the TPS gives us, the nearly $500 dollars we pay is nothing."

Maldonado, who was born in El Salvador and works cleaning kitchens in a casino, said in an interview outside the consulate that he hasn’t decided yet if he will leave the country with his family when TPS ends. He suspects many people will choose to stay in the United States without legal status when their permit expires and they can’t renew.

"President [Trump] has the right to eliminate the TPS," Maldonado said. "Like the name says, it’s temporary. If he wants to eliminate it, then he should go ahead and do it, but he is going to harm a lot of people."

Pushing for a permanent solution

Salvadoran officials have repeatedly requested an extension of TPS. Both El Salvador’s Foreign Affairs Minister Hugo Martinez, and later with President Salvador Sanchez Ceren, have pleaded their case to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.

During her visit to Las Vegas earlier this month, Liduvina Magarin, Deputy Minister for Salvadorans abroad, told The Nevada Independent in Spanish her government hopes there will be enough votes in Congress to come up with a new legislation that allows Salvadorans to finally stay in the United States.

Sermeño said an official delegation from El Salvador will travel to Washington to meet with members of Congress from both parties on Feb. 5 and 6.