Trump Administration Continues Anti-Immigrant Assault with Decision to End TPS for Salvadorans

January 8, 2018

The Trump administration today escalated its assault on immigrant communities, canceling Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for nearly 200,000 Salvadoran nationals living in the United States legally for over 15 years. Salvadorans are by far the largest community of TPS beneficiaries in the country, and this move throws life into chaos for thousands who call the United States home, as well as for the estimated 192,000 U.S. citizen children of Salvadoran TPS holders.

UUSC calls on Congress to pass permanent protections for all long-term TPS holders, a solution that has already been introduced in the form of the Safe Environment from Countries Under Repression and in Emergency (SECURE) Act, developed in part through the efforts of UUSC’s partner the UndocuBlack Network. Meanwhile, local governments must expand sanctuary policies that hold the line against federal efforts to deport and criminalize our communities until we have won permanent status for all long-term TPS holders.

Today’s TPS decision is appalling, but unsurprising. It continues this administration’s harsh stance against immigrant communities, including those with legal status, as indicated by its recent decision to revoke TPS for Haitians and several other nationalities, as well as its ongoing efforts to tie passage of the Dream Act to border militarization and restrictions to diversity visa and family-based migration.

Terminating the status flies in the face of bipartisan consensus and reveals as starkly as ever this administration’s core objective of slashing documented and undocumented immigration pathways alike, regardless of the human toll. The TPS program for Salvadorans has been renewed by both Republican and Democratic administrations since it was first designated in 2001. Scholars have extensively documented that country conditions in El Salvador continue to warrant the extension of TPS.

UUSC’s work in Central America confirms this finding. In 2016, UUSC conducted extensive research among Salvadoran asylum seekers, alongside our partners at the Independent Monitoring Group of El Salvador. The stories they told further substantiate the widely reported facts that organized criminal networks operate with impunity in El Salvador, that state authorities are unable or unwilling to provide protection, and that gangs deliberately prey upon people with known U.S. ties, including recent deportees, meaning that deportation would be tantamount to a death sentence for many.

Meredith Larson, UUSC’s Director of Advocacy, stated, “UUSC continues to work in solidarity with immigrant communities in the United States in the fight for permanent status for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients and TPS holders, as well as with our partners in El Salvador, Foundation Cristosal, who are working to build new and lasting solutions to protect victims of organized violence. Working together across our shared continent, we can and will hold the line against attempts to endanger and tear apart our communities.”