The Department of Homeland Security had approved a notice to end temporary protected status for roughly 200,000 Salvadorans, but the White House intervened before the notice could be published, according to people familiar with the administration’s deliberations. DHS and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services had cleared the notice for publication in the Federal Register. The White House’s abrupt halt caught some officials inside DHS by surprise, an administration official and three other people close to the administration said. The protections were due to expire about three weeks before the Sept. 29 announcement unless the administration extended them. Instead, officials have delayed a decision, leaving Salvadorans covered by the program uncertain about their legal status and future in the United States. Temporary protected status, or TPS, allows eligible people from designated countries to remain and work in the United States when conditions make a safe return difficult. Many Salvadorans have held the protections for 25 years. The reversal comes five weeks before an election, as President Donald Trump’s administration faces competing political pressures. Some of his strongest supporters have criticized what they see as a soft approach to immigration, while many independents and Hispanic voters who backed Trump argue the administration has gone too far. The Salvadoran case also puts business interests at odds with immigration hard-liners. The political stakes include a closely contested Senate race in Texas, which has the nation’s second-largest Salvadoran population. The administration has not announced whether it will extend the designation or take another step to resolve the status of those affected.