The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will announce that it will end protections in September 2019 for over 200,000 Salvadorans currently living in the U.S., Politico reports. The Trump administration already announced the end of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for recipients from Haiti, Nicaragua, and Sudan, but with Salvadorans and their 192,000 U.S. citizen kids representing the largest population of TPS families, hundreds of thousands of lives are now in limbo:
Immigrants from El Salvador are by far the largest group to benefit from Temporary Protected Status, which allows foreigners to remain in the United States if their home country experiences a natural disaster, armed conflict or other extraordinary event while they're here. The designation is only meant to be temporary, but the status had gotten repeatedly renewed under both Republican and Democratic administrations.
“Time after time, officials from different administrations have determined conditions in El Salvador hadn't improved enough for migrants with TPS to return,” CNN reported, and the nation continues to struggle with some of the most horrific violence in the world. To deport TPS families who have lived in the U.S. for an average of 21 years to this is reprehensible, and Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda at its worst.
“DHS ends TPS for Salvadorans, continuing their assault on immigrants in America with deep ties and strong equities,” tweeted immigrant rights leader and America’s Voice founder Frank Sharry. “Expelling Salvadorans and others with TPS, many of whom own homes and have US citizen children, is cruel and heartless. It's now up to Congress to step up.”
Monday, Jan 8, 2018 · 11:26:57 AM EST · Gabe Ortiz
How do we know conditions are truly unsafe in El Salvador? Donald Trump’s own government admitted it:
The Department of State warns U.S. citizens to carefully consider the risks of travel to El Salvador due to the high rates of crime and violence. El Salvador has one of the highest homicide levels in the world and crimes such as extortion, assault and robbery are common. This replaces the Travel Warning for El Salvador dated January 15, 2016.
But sure, deport nearly 200,000 U.S. citizen kids and their families there.
TPS families have not only had permission from the federal government to live and work in the U.S., they’ve become integral part of their communities, buying homes, opening businesses, and starting families. They have “been fully vetted, fingerprinted and incorporated into American society,” noted The Washington Post. “Most thought their next step was a path to U.S. citizenship, not deportation”:
“I consider this my country,” said [TPS recipient Oscar] Cortez, who came to the United States when he was 28 and is a silver-haired 46-year-old journeyman plumber at Shapiro & Duncan, a mechanical contractor in Rockville that works on construction projects in schools, office buildings, hospitals and other places.
“Behind us there are children and wives and nephews and nieces and mothers and fathers who depend on us,” Cortez added. “It doesn’t affect one person. It affects a ton of people.”
TPS recipients face being deported to nations with horrific human rights records. According to a report from Georgetown Law’s Human Rights Institute, “discrimination and violence perpetrated against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals in El Salvador at the hands of law enforcement officers, soldiers and justice system officials” is widespread:
The vast majority of LGBT individuals interviewed had been physically, sexually, and/or verbally assaulted by members of the Salvadoran police or military, and advocates say such abuses are extremely common. Among all the interviews conducted, there was only one report that police officers who were successfully prosecuted for violence against a lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender person.
“I have been persecuted by security forces, on so many occasions,” said one transgender interviewee who told the authors he suffered numerous beatings at officials’ hands. Describing one incident, he said, “I just put myself in God’s hands, because when I saw that they covered their faces, that’s when I really got scared.”
With this marking the fourth termination of status for TPS recipients in four months, it’s a systemic plan from the Trump administration to create more undocumented immigrants to deport, and a plan that’s covered in the white supremacist fingerprints of the ghoulish Stephen Miller. But with several bills sitting in Congress that would protect TPS recipients from deportation, it’s a plan we can fight back.
“With the termination of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and TPS status for individuals from Nicaragua, Sudan, and Haiti, this administration has now taken away lawful status from more than 1 million people, forcing them to live in the shadows or return to countries that are unstable and dangerous,” said the National Immigrant Justice Center. “In light of this tragic reality, NIJC calls on Congress to act now to uphold American values and prevent human and economic devastation to our country and global community.”
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News Today: Trump Administration Issues Sadistic Order Targeting 200,000 Salvadorans
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