Washington, D.C. — Today, the Trump administration announced that it will terminate the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designations for nearly 200,000 Salvadorans, with an 18-month delay, effective September 9, 2019. Tom Jawetz, vice president for Immigration Policy at the Center for American Progress, issued the following statement in response:
Even as Congress works to address the unnecessary crisis created by the Trump administration’s decision to end DACA and deport nearly 800,000 Dreamers, the administration today decided to expel approximately 200,000 Salvadoran TPS holders who have lived and worked lawfully in the United States for nearly 17 years. The anti-immigrant fervor driving the administration’s decisions are creating chaos for hundreds of thousands of families, including the 192,000 U.S. citizen children of these TPS holders who soon may see their families ripped apart. As with Dreamers, bipartisan legislation already exists in Congress to clean up the administration’s mess. It now falls to Congress to save our communities and prevent our economy from being unnecessarily disrupted by today’s cruel and reckless move.
Daniel Restrepo, CAP’s senior fellow, added:
The Trump administration’s decision to terminate TPS will not make America safer and will undermine U.S. efforts in the Western Hemisphere to better protect America from drug trafficking and gang violence. By sending back 200,000 workers who have been in America for 17 years, the Trump administration will actually increase the flow of migrants from El Salvador. The deportations we will see starting in September 2019 will displace already economically precarious workers in El Salvadorwho will migrate to the United States out of desperation. An end to remittances will disrupt the fragile economy. Trump is turning America’s back on our neighbors. He is antagonizing Northern Triangle governments and societies at a time when drug flows through the region continue to have devastating effects across the United States. Not only is the termination of TPS not in line with American values, it actually makes America less safe.
CAP experts are available to speak on this topic. To coordinate, please contact Rafael J. Medina at [email protected] or 202-748-5313.
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