Salvadorans in U.S. Could Be Next to Lose Protected Status

The Trump Administration has until Monday to decide whether to extend a program that offers temporary status to thousands of Salvadoran immigrants in the U.S.

The program, called Temporary Protected Status, protects immigrants from being deported if a natural disaster or political turmoil has caused instability in their native countries.

In 2001, about half a million Salvadorans in the U.S. received the designation after a massive earthquake hit El Salvador. Approximately 200,000 Salvadorans maintained that status and are at risk of losing it under the Trump administration.

“They pay billions of dollars in social security and Medicare taxes, they have U.S.-born children, [and are] significantly employed in construction, childcare services, hotel and accommodations, [and] restaurants," said Oscar Chacón, executive director of Alianza Americas, a group that works to improve the quality of life of Latinos in the U.S. and throughout the Americas.

Chacón said they also send millions of dollars in remittances to El Salvador every year which helps keep families afloat and produces life conditions that make people want to stay in El Salvador. He said that deters illegal immigration to the U.S. 

“El Salvador still is the most violent country in Central America and one of the most violent countries in the world,” Chacón said. “It’s something very well known, especially by our own U.S. State Department, and yet that does not seem to have much weight when it comes to [their] decisions.”

Last year the State Department concluded conditions in Haiti were safe enough for Haitians with Temporary Protected Status to return there. The number of TPS recipients varies, but according to a Congressional Research Service report, the Trump administration ended the humanitarian program for 58,557 from Haiti, 5,306 from Nicaragua and 1,048 from Sudan. (Another 86,031 from Honduras are also waiting to hear whether the Trump administration will renew their status).

In an email, Tyler Houlton with the Department of Homeland Security wrote, "The Secretary has received advice from DHS staff, other federal agencies, and interested stakeholders," ahead of its decision on Salvadorans.  

Conservative immigration groups, like the Federation For American Immigration, or FAIR, said the program had been abused. They said immigrants should only receive protection from deportation long enough for their home countries to recover from a natural disaster or war.  

“TPS is a temporary program, as the ‘T’ in its name indicates,” FAIR’s RJ Hauman, told The Dallas Morning News. “We fully expect the administration to end the long-term abuse of the program by terminating the designation for El Salvador, which was triggered by an earthquake nearly 20 years ago. This will send a strong signal that the rampant abuse of the TPS program will no longer be tolerated.”

Nicaraguans will lose their protected status in January 2019 and Haitians in July 2019.

Now, advocates like Chacón said they're relying on Congress to provide a path to legal status before protected status expires. He argued individuals who have been in the U.S. for nearly two decades have “become more than just a ‘temporarily protected’ individual.”

“That individual has already become a permanent fixture in our society, in our economy, in our local settings, and therefore, there should be a mechanism for that person to be able to apply for a status that is something more permanent.”