TPS ending: Salvadorans at risk of deportation
51% of the people from El Salvador who were shielded from deportation have lived in the USA for more than 20 years
More than 200,000 Salvadorans will have until September 9th of 2019 to leave United States, due to the end of Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a program that for almost two decades had granted protection to undocumented immigrants.
TPS is a humanitarian program created in 1990 by US ex-president George H.W. Bush, with the aim of allowing undocumented immigrants from countries affected by wars or natural disasters to obtain temporary work permits and to live in the country without risk of deportation. In 2001, El Salvador was included in the list of countries covered by TPS, after the Latin American nation was affected by two strong earthquakes during January and February of said year.
However, on Monday, January 8th, the US Department of Homeland Security announced in an official statement that the already have an exact deadline. “After carefully considering information from a wide variety of sources, Secretary Kirsten M. Nielsen has determined the termination of the TPS designation for El Salvador. She has determined to delay the termination for 18 months. The designation will terminate on Sept. 9, 2019”, said the office by its verified twitter account.
Donald Trump’s government had previously announced the cancellation of the TPS for Nicaragua and Haiti. More than 58,000 Haitians living in US territory protected under the TPS will have until the end of this year to arrange their immigration status or leave the country, as well as some 5,300 Nicaraguans, who will have until January 5th, 2019.
Salvadorans were by far the largest group of foreigners benefiting from temporary protected status with 200,000 immigrants. Due to this fact, since Trump assumed the presidency of the country, senior Salvadoran officials met with secretaries of state to request a new extension of the TPS and avoid its cancellation. However, these requests were ineffective.
"A terrible and detestable measure"
After acknowledging the news, Salvadorans will now have to expedite the procedures to formalize their status of permanence in the US, or leave the country before September 9th, 2019. The organizations defending the rights of immigrants qualify the measure as a "terrible and detestable" act that destabilizes homes built for more than two decades by thousands of people.
"What we are seeing is part of the strategy and policy of the Donald Trump government to continue attacking the immigrant community and splitting our families", CASA de Maryland executive director, Gustavo Torres, told Univision, adding that new US immigration procedures only seeks to attack the community "without mercy".
DACA in exchange for the wall
Like TPS, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program (DACA) is also one of the migrant assistance affected by the government. In this case 800,000 young immigrants would be at risk of deportation if DACA is suspended. However, in a recent statement issued by Donald Trump, the president expressed his interest in working with Democrats to find a permanent legislative solution for those covered by DACA, in exchange of the 18,000 million dollars that government has requested for the construction of the wall against the Mexican border and an additional 15,000 million dollars for migration security expenses.
According to reports from the Pew Research Center, an estimated 11.1 million undocumented immigrants are living in the US, figure that represent 3.5% of the total population. With the new migratory policies, more and more immigrants are at risk of being deported, either due to the cancellation of migratory programs such as DACA and TPS, or because of the recrudescence of norms that generate pressure and fear in the population, which causes thousands of illegal immigrants leave voluntarily the country.
Latin American Post | Krishna Jaramillo
Copy edited by Laura Rocha Rueda
