Time to leave, U.S. tells Salvadorans; 200,000 residency permits will end

Salvadoran immigrant Diana Paredes (left) reacts after Trump’s announcement on Temporary Protected Status for nationals of El Salvador on Monday in Los Angeles.
Salvadoran immigrant Diana Paredes (left) reacts after Trump’s announcement on Temporary Protected Status for nationals of El Salvador on Monday in Los Angeles.

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump's administration said Monday that it will terminate the provisional residency permits of about 200,000 Salvadorans who have lived in the country since at least 2001, leaving them to potentially face deportation.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen gave Salvadorans with temporary protected status until Sept. 9, 2019, to leave the United States, find a way to obtain legal residency or face deportation. El Salvador becomes the fourth country since Trump took office to lose protection under the program, which provides humanitarian relief for people whose countries are hit with natural disasters or other strife.

The decision was a severe blow to Salvadorans in New York, Houston, San Francisco and other major cities that have welcomed them since at least the 1980s.

Guillermo Mendoza, who came to the United States in 2000 when he was 19 years old, was anguished about what to do with his wife and two children who are U.S. citizens.

"What do I do? Do I leave the country and leave them here? That is a tough decision," said Mendoza, a safety manager at Shapiro & Duncan, a mechanical contractor company in Rockville, Md., near Washington.

Orlando Zepeda, who came to the United States in 1984 fleeing civil war in El Salvador, said the lack of surprise does not ease the sting for the 51-year-old Los Angeles-area man who works in building maintenance and has two American-born children.

"It's sad, because it's the same story of family separation from that time, and now history repeats itself with my children," Zepeda said in Spanish.

Many immigrants hope Congress can deliver a long-term reprieve by September 2019. If that fails, they face a grim choice: return to El Salvador voluntarily or live in the U.S. illegally under an administration that has dramatically increased deportation arrests.

[U.S. immigration: Data visualization of selectedimmigration statistics, U.S. border map]

Cristian Chavez Guevara, a 37-year-old Salvadoran immigrant in Houston who is raising two American stepchildren and a young cousin, said the decision would tear apart his family. He was unsure what to do.

"I have been building dreams for the future and raising hope for a better future not just for me but for my family," he said. "All of that came to a halt."

PLEA FROM EL SALVADOR

The action presents a serious challenge for El Salvador, a country of 6.2 million people whose economy counts on money sent by wage earners in the U.S. Over the past decade, growing numbers of Salvadorans -- many coming as families or unaccompanied children -- have entered the United States illegally through Mexico, fleeing violence and poverty.

In September 2016, President Barack Obama's administration extended protections for 18 months, saying El Salvador was still suffering the lingering effects of earthquakes in 2001 that killed more than 1,000 people. The administration said the country was temporarily unable to absorb such a large number of returning people.

Nielsen, who faced a Monday deadline on another extension, concluded that El Salvador has received significant international aid to recover from the earthquake, and homes, schools and hospitals there have been rebuilt.

"Based on careful consideration of available information, including recommendations received as part of an inter-agency consultation process, the Secretary determined that the original conditions caused by the 2001 earthquakes no longer exist," Monday's Homeland Security Department statement read. "Thus, under the applicable statute, the current TPS designation must be terminated."

The statement also noted that the U.S. government has deported more than 39,000 Salvadorans in the past two years, demonstrating, it said, "that the temporary inability of El Salvador to adequately return their nationals after the earthquake has been addressed."

El Salvador President Salvador Sanchez Ceren spoke by phone Friday with Nielsen to renew his plea to extend status for 190,000 Salvadorans and allow more time for Congress to deliver a long-term fix for them to stay in the United States. The country's top diplomat, Foreign Minister Hugo Martinez, said Monday's decision underscored a need for the U.S. Congress to act.

Immigrant advocates, Salvadoran government officials and many others had implored Nielsen to extend the designation, citing the country's horrific gang violence and the potentially destabilizing effect of so many people being sent home.

But officials in the Trump administration say the only criteria the government should consider is whether the original reason for the designation -- in this case, damage from the earthquakes -- still exists.

Others urged her to consider the approximately 190,000 U.S.-born children of Salvadoran Temporary Protected Status recipients. Their parents must now decide whether to break up their families, take the whole family back to El Salvador, or stay in the country and risk deportation.

Senior homeland security officials told reporters Monday that the families would have to make that decision, and that the impact on American businesses, among other potential consequences of the decision, were not part of Nielsen's decision-making process. They said it is up to Congress to determine a remedy.

"Only Congress can legislate a permanent solution addressing the lack of an enduring lawful immigration status of those currently protected by TPS who have lived and worked in the United States for many years," the statement read. "The 18-month delayed termination will allow Congress time to craft a potential legislative solution."

The United States created temporary protected status in 1990 to provide safe havens for people from countries affected by earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, war and other disasters. It currently shields people from 10 countries, more than half from El Salvador.

The benefit, which includes work authorization, can be renewed up to 18 months at a time by the homeland security secretary.

In November, Nielsen's predecessor, acting Secretary Elaine Duke, ended the protection for Haitians, requiring them to leave or adjust their legal status by July 22, 2019, and for Nicaraguans, giving them until Jan. 5, 2019. She delayed a decision affecting Hondurans, leaving that to Nielsen.

Last year, the Trump administration extended status for South Sudan and ended it for Sudan. Other countries covered are Nepal, Somalia, Syria and Yemen.

Countries that have received and then lost the designation in the past include Bosnia and Herzegovina, which endured a civil war in the 1990s, and Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia during the Ebola crisis.

MOVE CRITICIZED

Democratic leaders and immigrant advocacy groups sharply criticized the move. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi called it "a heartbreaking blow to nearly a quarter of a million hardworking Salvadorans who are American in every way." Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, ranking Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, said it was "just the latest in a string of heartless, xenophobic actions from the Trump administration."

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops called it "heartbreaking" and said "many families will be devastated."

Lawmakers from both parties who represent cities and states with large immigrant populations blasted Monday's decision, including Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., who called it "a shameful and cynical move" whose purpose was to "score political points with the extreme right-wing Republican base."

Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., said he urged the Trump administration to reconsider the decision. "Since 2001, these people have established themselves in the United States, making countless contributions to our society and our local communities. It would be devastating to send them home after they have created a humble living for themselves and their families."

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and immigrant advocacy organizations also had urged the administration to extend the protection, noting the Salvadorans' deep connections to the United States. According to an analysis by one group, the Center for Migration Studies, Salvadoran beneficiaries have 192,700 U.S.-born children; 88 percent participate in the labor force, compared with 63 percent for the overall U.S. population; and nearly one-quarter have a mortgage.

Donald M. Kerwin Jr., the center's executive director, called rescinding protection for Salvadorans a "baffling ideological decision that is extraordinarily destructive on all ends. They are deeply vested and embedded in the U.S."

However, groups advocating immigration restrictions called it an important step for the humanitarian program's credibility.

"The past practice of allowing foreign nationals to remain in the United States long after an initial emergency in their home countries has ended has undermined the integrity of the program and essentially made the 'temporary' protected status a front operation for backdoor permanent immigration," said Roy Beck, president of NumbersUSA.

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors restrictions on immigration, said the Trump administration was correctly abiding by the original intent of the program.

"We need to put the 'T' back into TPS," he said. "It has to be temporary. This has gone on far too long."

The decision comes amid intensifying talks between the White House and Congress on an immigration package that may include protections for hundreds of thousands of young illegal immigrants who came to the country as children and were temporarily shielded from deportation under an Obama-era program. Trump said in September that he was ending Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals but gave Congress until March to act.

There were new signs Monday that Temporary Protected Status could end up as a bargaining chip in a potential congressional immigration deal. A source familiar with the negotiations said Congress could step in to help the Salvadorans, Haitians and other groups.

Democrats and Republicans have been privately discussing the possibility of curbing the diversity visa lottery program, which grants about 55,000 green cards each year to immigrants from nations with low immigration rates to the United States, in exchange for extending Temporary Protected Status.

Information for this article was contributed by Luis Alonso Lugo, Elliot Spagat, Amy Taxin and Mark Stevenson of The Associated Press; by Nick Miroff, Ed O'Keefe, David Nakamura and Maria Sacchetti of The Washington Post; and by Miriam Jordan of The New York Times.

A Section on 01/09/2018

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