The Trump administration designated an Ecuadorian gang as a “foreign terrorist organization” on Wednesday, extending its list of designated foreign terrorist groups in Latin America and the Caribbean to 21.

The State Department designated Los Tiguerones as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and a Specially Designated Global Terrorist.

According to the department, Los Tiguerones is an Ecuador-based gang linked to narcotrafficking and other illicit activity, along with several attacks targeting civilians, law enforcement officers and journalists, including the live takeover of an Ecuadorian TV station in 2024.

“The Trump administration will continue to use all available tools to protect our nation by keeping illicit drugs off our streets and disrupting the revenue streams funding violent narcoterrorists,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.

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“Today’s action taken by the State Department further demonstrates that the Trump administration continues to deliver on its promises to the American people to dismantle cartels and narcoterrorist networks in our region, ensuring the safety of the American people,” he added.

The announcement came during Rubio’s diplomatic tour to South America, where he made stops in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru to address U.S. efforts to combat drug trafficking in Latin America.

The label was previously reserved for terrorist groups such as ISIS and al-Qaida that use violence for political ambitions and not for financially motivated crime organizations like the ones in Latin America and the Caribbean that have recently been added to the list.

But the administration wants to increase pressure on the crime rings and anyone believed to be assisting them.

The government began using the strategy in February 2025, and it served as a pretext for the U.S. capture of then-Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro earlier this year, as well as dozens of deadly attacks on boats allegedly involved in narcotics trafficking.

The strategy also prompted Latin American countries, including Guatemala and Argentina, to take similar action against certain groups and led Ecuador to launch joint operations on its own soil.

Rubio said terrorist designations “expose and isolate entities and individuals, denying them access to the U.S. financial system and the resources they need to carry out attacks.” He also said designations can assist law enforcement actions of other U.S. agencies and governments.

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Mexico has the most groups of any country on the U.S. list for designated foreign terrorist organizations with eight. The Mexican government is under intense pressure from the U.S. to prevent President Donald Trump from taking unilateral action against cartels in Mexico.

Trump’s approach has also featured contradictions, as he pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was sentenced to 45 years in prison for drug trafficking and accused during his trial of protecting the Sinaloa Cartel. Hernández has since returned to his country.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Thousands of Salvadoran immigrants nationwide faced uncertainty after the federal government failed to decide by a Wednesday deadline whether to extend or terminate their longtime temporary protections against deportation.

Those protections, known as Temporary Protected Status or TPS, allow immigrants to obtain work permits and by Thursday some Salvadorans had already been fired from their jobs. Others who had been let go were reinstated after the Trump administration clarified that an announcement on TPS for Salvadorans would come “at the appropriate time” and that they would retain work authorization in the meantime.

Employers also expressed uncertainty about whether the statement was enough to legally keep Salvadoran employees on their payroll. Those who lost their jobs worked across the U.S. in construction, at hotels and as janitors.

Some took the announcement that work authorizations remained in place — made late Wednesday by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services — as a cause for hope, while others saw it as prolonged mental torture. There are 170,000 Salvadoran TPS holders, including 36,000 living in California.

Asked for further guidance on Thursday, Homeland Security sent a link to the USCIS website.

Advocates with the National TPS Alliance distributed a letter including the administration’s announcement for TPS holders to share with their employers and stating that “any decision to terminate could not take effect for a minimum of 60 days.” The letter seemed to help, as advocates reported that some fired employees had been able to return to work.

Not everyone was reinstated. Jose Ramirez reported to his construction job in Santa Monica for the last time on Wednesday.

The 63-year-old had been legally working in the U.S. since 2001, when TPS was first extended to Salvadoran immigrants.

He had been in the country for six years before that, and constantly struggled to find stable work. The work permit was a lifeline. He’d dedicated the last 25 years to construction, during which he fathered three daughters and set roots in Compton.

Still, his boss said Ramirez could no longer present for work Thursday.

“I’ve worked on buildings that reach the skies of Los Angeles,” Ramirez said. “I’ve contributed economically and lent my labor to this great country.”

Ramirez’s boss said his job would be available to him, but he’d need to show proof of an active work permit. A notice or a letter is not enough, Ramirez said.

The USCIS announcement was “a ray of hope that they will give us an extension,” Ramirez said. “But, it’s just not certain. Anything can happen. We’re just praying to God that the government will make it official.”

Others were luckier. Karina, 42, who has been a custodian at a university in Houston for 18 years, said she panicked when a human resources representative called to say she wouldn’t be able to return to work. Karina asked The Times not to include her last name or the name of the university where she works out of concern for her employment.

She said her job pays for half of her daughter’s college tuition and the health insurance of both of her children. She also pays for her mother’s kidney disease medication in El Salvador.

Given the uncertainty, the university gave Karina one month of unpaid leave, she said. But after the USCIS announcement, the representative called her back Thursday and said she could return to work the next day.

Karina said she owns a house, has always paid taxes and never relied on government assistance. She said she was grateful for the reprieve, albeit momentary.

“I have my whole life here,” she said of the U.S. “Over there, I have nothing.”

Signs at a news conference to provide an update on the status of TPS designation for Salvadoran immigrants.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Ending TPS would be a shock to El Salvador’s economy, where remittances from Salvadorans in the U.S. make up nearly a quarter of the nation’s GDP — nearly $10 billion last year. In 2019, President Nayib Bukele, an ally of President Trump, publicly called on the U.S. to extend TPS for Salvadoran immigrants.

More recently, Bukele has embraced Trump’s deportation agenda, including by accepting controversial deals to house foreign detainees in the country’s mega-prison. The number of people deported to El Salvador nearly doubled in the first three months of 2026.

The decision by the Department of Homeland Security to extend or terminate TPS typically has been made at least 60 days before the designation was set to expire. DHS can extend the program for a six, 12 or 18-month period or decide to cancel the designation.

But the Trump administration has delayed announcements, including some made days after the designation expired. A Supreme Court ruling in June determined that the Homeland Security secretary has final authority over the program and cut down the ability for advocates to sue.

Rebecca Shi, executive director of the American Business Immigration Coalition, said she spoke on Wednesday with Trump administration and Homeland Security officials. The group represents companies that employ immigrants, including TPS holders.

She said there has been an internal debate within the administration around the economic impact of eliminating work authorization for Salvadorans, who have lived in the U.S. for decades, perform skilled jobs and can’t easily be replaced. That debate escalated last week, she said.

In initial statements to reporters on Wednesday, Homeland Security had said only that until an announcement about TPS, Salvadorans would “retain protection.” Shi said the clarification that evening that Salvadorans would also retain work authorization was a good sign.

“We’re cautiously optimistic,” she said. “DHS yesterday could have said nothing. The fact that they made that change — that had to be a decision because of the pressure.”

For now, though, some employers are stuck waiting for answers.

Lauren Truslow, CEO of 3D Enviro, a Virginia company that does identification and abatement of hazardous materials, said the lack of a decision on TPS has been stressful and costly. Three of her 30 employees are TPS holders from El Salvador. Another, who is married to a Salvadoran TPS holder, told her his family plans to leave the country if the program is canceled.

3D Enviro is a federal contractor, and Truslow said that her employees’ driver’s licenses and federal badges expired on Wednesday.

“How do they continue to work for me?” she said. “No one seems to know the answer to that. They can’t get into federal facilities without valid ID. Them showing a memo from USCIS is not going to cut it.”

During a news conference organized on Thursday by the Central American Resource Center of Los Angeles, other immigrant rights groups and local elected officials, speakers urged TPS holders to form a plan for their families and schedule a legal consultation with a trusted lawyer. They also called on the administration to issue a decision on TPS for El Salvador and a pathway to permanent legal status.

“Salvadoran families deserve clear, timely and trustworthy information from the government,” said Martha Arévalo, CARECEN’s executive director. “As we gather this morning, we don’t have an extension for TPS. … What we have is another waiting game and a renewed limbo for families.”

“We are going to fight this,” vowed Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.

In a statement, Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) called the USCIS announcement “clear as mud.”

“Once again, the Trump Administration is punishing immigrants who have followed the rules with chaos, uncertainty, and cruelty,” he wrote.

Also in attendance at the news conference was Carmen Sanchez, 49, who works the night janitorial shift cleaning offices in Los Angeles. She said many of her co-workers who were also protected under TPS were told not to return to work after Wednesday.

Sanchez planned to report to work Thursday evening, but was sure she’d suffer the same fate. She said she has three adult children in El Salvador and is helping two of them pay for college.

“If we lose our work permit, we lose our job. We lose our stability. We lose everything,” Sanchez said. “We’re being kept on this thread of extensions, and we don’t know when that thread is going to break.”