Trump to end Temporary Protected Status status for Salvadorans

Tens of thousands of Marylanders from El Salvador living in the country under a Temporary Protected Status designation will have that protection revoked next year, the Trump administration will announce Monday.

The Department of Homeland Security will announce it is ending the designation Sept. 9, 2019, according to multiple sources briefed on the decision. Salvadorans are by far the largest group to benefit from the status, often granted when home countries are struck by natural disaster or war.

Nearly 437,000 foreign nationals are benefiting from Temporary Protected Status, or TPS. The 27-year-old program, approved by a Democratic Congress and signed into law by Republican President George H.W. Bush, shields eligible immigrants from deportation.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen's decision on Salvadorans follows similar announcements for Nicaraguans and Haitians.

Maryland is home to the fourth-largest community of Salvadorans with TPS in the nation — some 20,000 people — according to the New York-based Center for Migration Studies. Most are concentrated in Montgomery and Prince George's counties.

Nationally, about 263,000 Salvadorans have benefited since 2001 –- following a devastating series of earthquakes – more than the other nine currently designated countries combined. Many have established lives and careers in the United States as the designation was extended for years.

Critics of TPS say the system is being abused. They ask why a decades-old earthquake or hurricane is being used to justify allowing people — many of whom came to the country illegally — to stay in the United States.

The program applies to foreign nationals who are living in the United States on the date the Department of Homeland Security declares TPS for their country. Immigrants who arrive after the declaration are not eligible. Unlike asylum, TPS is intended to apply only temporarily. Those who benefit are ineligible for permanent residence or citizenship.

El Salvador, a nation of 6 million wedged between Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, ranks among the world’s most violent places. A civil war from 1979 to 1992, which the United States helped to fund with billions in military aid, weakened the country’s criminal justice system, allowing gangs to proliferate.

The Obama administration extended the TPS designation for El Salvador to March 2018. Trump’s Department of Homeland Security had to announce a decision this month.

Democrats pounced on the decision.

“This decision is shameful, but sadly it’s not surprising,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Marylabnd. These families work in our communities, open businesses in our state, and go to school with our children. They have lived here legally for decades and call America home.”

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