As Salvadoran TPS deadline nears, Hispanic Pentecostal leaders urge immigration protections

Bishop Benjamin Feliz often hears from pastors in his network who describe the daily strain of uncertainty on families whose legal status could vanish overnight. He sees the same worry in his own circle, where people who have built lives in the United States suddenly face the possibility of separation from their children. Fifty bishops and denominational heads representing more than 21,000 congregations came together in the capital on September 8 under the banner of the Confraternity of Pentecostal Entities of the Americas. The group, formed only that January, had pulled the meeting together in less than two weeks after counting nineteen pastors and nearly two hundred church members already detained or deported. The leaders carried a clear request: extend the Temporary Protected Status program that shields roughly 170,000 Salvadorans, a protection scheduled to lapse the following day. They also asked for the program to be reopened for Haitians whose status had ended in July. Agustín Quiles, the group’s spokesperson, described the gathering as a pastoral act rather than a political one, an effort to stand with people whose lives were being upended. Rigoberto Magaña, a superintendent in the Assemblies of God, recalled arriving in the United States in the 1970s under a similar temporary arrangement. That experience left him with a lasting sense of how quickly circumstances can shift for families. He noted the particular weight on U.S.-citizen children who fear losing a parent at any moment. Victor Artreche, who oversees dozens of churches in the North Central Hispanic region of the Church of God, spoke of the gap between what many Hispanic Pentecostals had expected from immigration enforcement and what they were seeing on the ground. His own congregations had lost pastors and members to detentions that reached beyond those with criminal records. The leaders stressed their willingness to work directly with officials, including those who share their faith tradition. They pointed to the shared emphasis on kindness toward newcomers found throughout scripture. At the same time, Artreche warned that continued disregard for these concerns could affect future voting decisions among Hispanic Pentecostals. The meeting marked the first time twelve Pentecostal denominations had coordinated on this scale, an outcome several participants described as long overdue. They left the capital still awaiting a response but convinced that their combined voice would continue to reach decision makers on behalf of the families they serve.