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NJ man left U.S. ahead of reprieve

Legal status retained, but too late for chemist

By: Hannan Adely
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey

..... By the time emerson Villaran Calles learned that the Trump administration would temporarily l;eave legal protections in place for Salvadorans like hie, he was already gone.
..... The 29-year-old had moved out of his Piscataway apartment, transferred his car to friends and left his dream job as a fine-fragrance chemist. Then, he said tearful goodbyes to his friends and family.
..... On September 7, [2026] two days before Temporary Protected Status was scheduled to expire, Villaran Calles boarded a plane at Newark Liberty International Airport to El Salvador - a country he had not seen since he was 4.
..... He returned to the rural town of Candelaria, Cuscatian where his grandparents raised him during his earliest years. There, he found a landscape familiar and foreign.
..... "Walking through the gate and into their little courtyard area, it reminded me of when I did use to live here," Villaran Calles said in an interview from his grandparents' home. "The tree that they have, it's much larger now. I don't remember the chickens or the turkeys hate are here, but they're in their little coop."
..... He was settling into his new surroundings when he heard he news that the Trump administration would keep Temporary Protected Status for Salvadorans in effect for now. More information about the future of the program would be released "at the appropriate time," officials said.
..... The last-minute reprieve arrived too late for Villrana Calles. Still, he believes he made the right decision to go.
.....His immigration status and work permit were about to be cut. He worried, too, the growing immigration detention system and the possibility of being caught in it.
..... After seeing the headlines about Temporary Protected Status "and the awful treatment of other immigrants, I made the tough decision to deport," he said. "God forbid I'm at the wrong place at the wrong time, and then I'm taken into a detention center. That sounds way worse to me."
..... For Villaran Calles and other Temporary Protected Status, holders, the harm was not only the threat f losing the program. It was the limbo: months of silence, a looming deadline had the prospect that a last-minute government decision could upend a job, a home and a family's future.
..... "It's a shame that it's been 26 years," he said. "There's never been a pathway to citizenship or anything. It's just always been looming over people's heads.

A life built in New Jersey

..... When Villaran Calles was 4, his mother returned to El Salvador for him and brought him to Plainfield. [NJ] He grew up in Central Jersey, attained school in Somerset County and absorbing a message his parents repeated to take advantage of opportunists available in the United States.
..... He focused on learning.
..... Villaran Calles was a top student at Bound Brook High School, attend the honors program at Raritan Valley Community College and earned a chemistry degree from Rutgers University, he said. He worked at a hotel while pursing his education and secured scholarships to pay for school.
..... Along the way, he found a network of mentors: a high school chemistry teacher who fostered his interest in perfumery; a local librarian and her husband who helped him cover college expenses; a philanthropist who helped open the door to Rutgers; and school staff who helped him navigate financial aid and immigration questions.
..... "I didn't have a choice in coming to this country," he said, "but I knew that there was a goal I wanted to achieve. You know the saying "it takes a village?' To me, it was like the whole entire state of New Jersey really helped me to get there."
..... In his most recent job at DSM-Firmenich, a multi-national health and beauty company, Villaran Calles evaluated the quality of fragrance formulas and traveled to New York City to meet with top perfume producers.
..... It was the career he had dreamed about since high school.
..... "It felt like another graduation," he said. "It felt like I finally did it. I finally had made it."

The cost of uncertainty

..... El Salvador received a Temporary Protected status - or TPS - designation after devastating earthquakes struck the country in 2001. The federal program permits people already in the United Sates to remain and work legally when their country is unsafe due to armed conflict, natural disaster or other extraordinary circumstances.
..... Over the next 25 years, U.S. presidents repeatedly renewed TPS for El Salvador. But it does not provide a pathway to citizenship or a green card.
..... The Trump administration has ended TPS for other counties as it reshapes the U.S. immigration system. Federal officials said the program was intended to be only temporary.
..... In some cases, they have argued that a country's conditions improved or that TPS ran counter to national interest.
..... For Salvadorans, the administration initially set September 9 [2026] as the date when the program would end. Then, on the date protections were set to expire, the Department of Homeland Security issued an alert saying it would make an announcement "at an appropriate time" and the TPS for El Salvador would stay in effect until then.
..... The announcement provided temporary relief for an estimated 170,000 to 200,000 Salvadoran recipients. But the administration offered no clear end date or lasting resolution. As of 2018, there were 6,800 Salvadorans in New Jersey with TPS.
..... "These last couple of years, it really felt like my livelihood was just dangled in front of me," Villaran Calles said. "There's always this talk: 'Oh, we're gong to get rid of it,' and, 'Oh no, we're not going to get rid of it.'"
..... Other pathways for TPS holders are limited. Family members who are U.S. citizens can petition for them to become permanent legal residents. They can also apply for asylum if they can prove persecution, but that is unceasingly hard to patrician. They are not eligible to apply for Deferred Action for childhood Arrivals, or DACA, a program protecting individuals who arrived in the country as children.
..... "It stinks" that he had to leave, Villaran Calles said. But for many others, he said, leaving would be even harder.
..... "I'm not the only one that has built a life over there,"he added. "I know other people that have their won businesses, they have homes, they have families. So I think I'm kind of lucky in terms of not having all those other responsibilities to take care of because it;s just me."

A goodbye a the airport

..... Villaran Calles is the oldest of nine siblings and half-siblings, and the others are U. S.-born citizens. His sister Giseth Alvarenga, 20, described him as a role model - someone who was involved in school, participated in honor societies and community service, and studied late into the night. As adults, the siblings met for dinner and holiday gatherings.
..... The day he left, she said, was emotional.
..... "We all went to the airport with him to drop him off," Alvarenga said. "We say my younger sibling break down and hug his goodbye."
..... Even then, she said, Villaran Calles tried to reassure everyone around him.
..... "He was always optimistic about it: 'You guys will get to visit me. We'll see each other soon.' But I know in the back of his mind there was some worry."
..... Alvarenga has organized a GoFundMe campaign to help her brother secure housing, transportation and work as he gets established in El Salvador. Villaran Calles hopes to move to San Salvador, where he believes there may be more work opportunities for someone who speaks English and Spanish and holds a U.S. chemistry degree.
..... The hardest part of laving, he said, was not parting with the apartment, the car or job. It was leaving New Jersey and the family, friendships and community hat made it home.
..... He opes that by leaving before his TPS status lapsed, he can remain in good sanding in the U.S. immigration system and one day return to work or visit. but he knows there are no guarantees.
..... For now, he is focused on his future life in El Salvador.
..... In Instagram reels, he has detailed his TPS ordeal and his move to Central America with warmth, humor and hope. He spoke of reuniting with his grandparents. He envisioned throwing a birthday celebration in El Salvador. He joked that El Salvador spent 26 years getting ready for his return.
..... "I get to go home fate so many years," eh said. "Twenty-six years later, I get to rediscover."
..... And he shared parting words fro the country that he truly, knew as home.
..... "I'm not going to be the one that's going to miss out on America," he said, noting his talent and volunteerism. "It's America that's going to miss out on me."

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