Temporary Protected Status
March for DACA and TPS protest in Battery Park New York City in October 2019. strgaphoto / Shutterstock.com
Several top diplomats repeatedly warned of the consequences of rescinding legal protections for immigrants from El Salvador, Honduras, and Haiti, but the Trump administration ignored them, according to a report out Thursday from the Democratic staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
IN MAY, the Trump administration ended Temporary Protected Status for Hondurans, opening the door for the deportation of nearly 60,000 legal immigrants to the U.S. and threatening the security of their American-born children. The Department of Homeland Security is systematically stripping TPS status from more than 300,000 people, including immigrants from El Salvador (195,000), Haiti (50,000), Nepal, Nicaragua, and Sudan. Decisions on Yemen and Somalia are expected in July.
Temporary Protected Status enables foreign nationals to live and work in the United States while conditions exist in their home countries that prevent safe return, such as armed conflict, natural disaster, or other extreme circumstances. Hondurans were granted TPS following Hurricane Mitch in 1998. Honduras holds the second-highest rate of nationals murdered after their deportation, according to the Immigrant Legal Resource Center.
The “crucified people” from Central America are “not so much pursuing the American dream as they are fleeing the Central American nightmare,” said Jesuit priest Dean Brackley, who spent more than 20 years teaching in San Salvador, in 2011.
Otto Madrid at his masonry firm, JPN Masonry. Photo by Priyanka Godbole
“I was 22 years old when I was forced to leave [El Salvador] due to the earthquakes,” Madrid said. “I knew that despite this tragedy I could get ahead in terms of my career by going the U.S. so when I heard the news of TPS being canceled I immediately felt myself being put in those shoes again and it was like, 'Man, this is going to be tough for a lot of people.'”
Salvadoran immigrant Mirna Portillo, following the announcement to end TPS Jan. 8, 2018. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly
The Department of Homeland Security announced on Monday that it would terminate the temporary protected status for Salvadorans living in the U.S. beginning September 2019, putting 200,000 of them at risk of being sent back to a country with one of the highest murder rates in the world.
A U.S. flag flutters over top of the skyline of New York (R) and Jersey City (L), as seen from Bayonne, N.J., Aug. 6, 2011. REUTERS/Gary Hershorn
The United States will end in July 2019 a special status given to about 59,000 Haitian immigrants that protects them from deportation, senior Trump administration officials said on Monday.
A U.S. flag flutters over top of the skyline of New York (R) and Jersey City (L), as seen from Bayonne, New Jersey, August 6, 2011. REUTERS/Gary Hershorn
The decision to end TPS for Nicaraguans is part of President Donald Trump's broader efforts to tighten restrictions on immigration. Hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants from across Central America live and work in the United States, but some are protected from the threat of deportation under the TPS program.
Thousands from both Nicaragua and Honduras were given the special status in 1999 after Hurricane Mitch devastated Central America. In all, TPS protects more than 300,000 people from nine countries living in the United States.
Image via Marion Doss/Flickr
More than ever, people living under TPS live in a kind of incomprehensible uncertainty. They have few options, and the Trump administration has signaled that these options are about to narrow even further.
Image via RNS/Kit Doyle
In 2010, a terrible earthquake struck Haiti that caused the deaths of over 100,000 people and destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure. The U.S. granted TPS to 58,000 Haitians to live in safety and rebuild their lives, work, and support family members still in Haiti.