Like many contractors in the greater Boston area, Jose Urias is in demand. He's juggling the renovation of seven houses and managing dozens of employees. Urias came to the U.S. after his native El Salvador suffered two severe earthquakes in 2001. And he'd be the classic American success story, except he may be thrown out of the U.S. because he lives in the country under Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a legal designation that the Trump administration sees as a loophole in the immigration system.

Now, Urias and some 300,000 other TPS immigrants anxiously await the outcome of a case in California's Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, where the U.S. government is seeking to remove TPS for four countries: El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua and Sudan. Should the Trump administration prevail in the ninth circuit, TPS holders could be forced to leave the U.S., though more legal challenges are expected.

TPS provides a blanket protection to immigrants for humanitarian reasons — during a civil war, or after a natural disaster. Salvadorans, like Urias, make up the largest group of immigrants in the U.S. with TPS status. In Massachusetts there are roughly 6,000, and most of them live in the greater Boston area.

The designations must be renewed periodically by the government. El Salvador's most recent TPS renewal in 2016 by the Obama administration cited the inability of the country to handle refugee returns. Human rights advocates point to the country's homicide rate — one of the world's highest.

Read More: Some Salvadoran Immigrants Say Their Work Permits Are Being Rejected On The Job And At The RMV

The Trump administration considers the conditions that triggered the original designation as the only relevant measure when judging whether to renew TPS.

Jose Urias said that after 18 years in the U.S., temporary does not describe his situation.

"You build family, you build business, you buy houses, you are part of your neighborhood," he said, "how you going to call that temporary? You going to call your kids a temporary life, too?"

Lynn resident Jose Palma and his wife are both Salvadoran TPS holders, and their four children are U.S. citizens. They've already decided that if they're forced to leave, they'll take their two small children and leave their teenagers behind. With an estimated 270,000 U.S. citizen children of TPS holders, it's a difficult calculation that he said many households are having to make.

When Palma came to the U.S. nearly 20 years ago, he said he took whatever job he could find — working in a factory, as a dishwasher and as a truck driver — and went to school at night. He's now a paralegal and heads the Massachusetts TPS Coalition.

"This is a community that has already been part of the places where we live and we just want to continue contributing," said Palma.

Depending on the outcome of a current Ninth Circuit case, two other countries — Honduras and Nepal — may also lose TPS status.

For now, Palma prefers to be optimistic.

"We are not giving up. We have been giving so much to this country, and we know many people understand and appreciate contribution so we hope that we will find a solution to this."