Alejandro Segura, 49, said he left El Salvador in 1999 and came to the U.S. on a religious worker visa. He applied for the TPS program in 2001 and settled in Joliet with his wife and sons, who were 4 and 7 at the time. Segura had worked as a teacher in El Salvador and left to do missionary work in the U.S. He and his wife decided to stay so that their children would have a shot at a better life.