Trump Admin Extends Temporary Protected Status to Salvadorans in the U.S.
El Salvador’s president has always made it known he wants to work with Trump, not against him, when it comes to immigration.
President Donald Trump’s administration extended temporary protected status to the Salvadorans living in the U.S. through January 2021.
The extension was announced by El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, who has prioritized continued protection for Salvadorans in the U.S. in immigration-policy talks with Washington.
“They said it was impossible. That the Salvadoran Government could not do anything,” he wrote in a Twitter post that included a video of him announcing it jointly with Ronald Johnson, the U.S. ambassador to the country. “But after all, thank God, TPS was achieved.”
“This is an acknowledgment of the achievements and good work of the government of President Nayib Bukele,” Mr. Johnson said.
Decían que era imposible. Que el Gobierno Salvadoreño no podía hacer nada. Pero nosotros sabíamos que nuestros aliados no nos dejarían solos.
No quisimos compartirlo antes porque podíamos entorpecer las conversaciones.
Pero después de todo, gracias a Dios, el TPS se logró. pic.twitter.com/xKF77r13cS
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) October 28, 2019
Salvadorans can receive another “year of protection once a court battle over the matter concludes.” WSJ continued:
A federal judge in San Francisco last year temporarily halted the administration’s terminations of TPS, allowing the affected immigrants to remain, pending litigation. An appeals-court decision in that case is expected soon, but that will likely be appealed to the Supreme Court.
Under the federal court’s decision, the government would still likely have honored protections for Salvadorans while litigation over its attempt to end TPS continues.
Should a court rule in its favor, the administration had already agreed to give affected immigrants a three-month window to leave the U.S. Monday’s agreement with the Salvadoran government would extend Salvadorans’ time to leave to as long as a year.
Since January 2018, the media has made quips at Trump, implying he wanted to send Salvadorans to the curb. I had to set them straight in one of my blogs.
I mentioned in my January blog that the protections end in September 2019.
A lot goes into TPS decisions. Officials decide who receives TPS “in cases where the U.S. government determines a population’s home country is too dangerous to return.”
El Salvador’s murder rate has gone down, but “remains one of the highest in the world.” The country also faces rampant poverty and gang violence.
It also helps that El Salvador has expressed a desire to work with America.
Over the summer, the media published pictures of dead migrants and placed the blame on Trump. However, Bukele pushed back and blamed his country’s policies:
“People don’t flee their homes because they want to, people flee their homes because they feel they have to,” he told the BBC in the capital, San Salvador.
“Why? Because they don’t have a job, because they are being threatened by gangs, because they don’t have basic things like water, education, health.
“We can blame any other country but what about our blame? What country did they flee? Did they flee the United States? They fled El Salvador, they fled our country. It is our fault.”
Bukele vowed to work with the U.S. and other countries to find ways to make El Salvador prosperous and a country people do not want to leave.
It takes time, though. A few weeks after Bukele’s remarks, Trump announced his administration reached a “safe third country” deal with Guatemala in regards to migrants from El Salvador and Honduras:
The agreement would require that migrants traveling through Guatemala on the way to the U.S. seek asylum in Guatemala instead of at the U.S.-Mexico border. President Trump joined Guatemala’s interior minister, Enrique Degenhart, and Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan in the Oval Office to sign what White House officials said was a safe third-country agreement.
“They can make a protection claim, if they would like, in Guatemala,” Mr. McAleenan said. “So, if they arrive in the U.S. not having availed themselves of that opportunity, they will be returned to Guatemala.”
Mr. Trump said the agreement will help address “the crippling crisis on our border.” He added that the U.S. and Guatemala now “get along.”
After that agreement, the “State Department eased its travel advisory for” El Salvador.
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allowing the affected immigrants to remain
These is a cute way of saying “criminals”—or did I miss something?
You missed a whole lot. People with TPS are here legally. They never broke any laws, so they are not criminals.
(Even if/when their TPS finally ends, those who don’t go home will not be criminals, because remaining here illegally is not a crime. But until then the whole question doesn’t arise. They are legal temporary residents, with the right to work, just like any citizen or legal alien.)
It also helps that El Salvador has expressed a desire to work with America.
This makes all the difference. Since we decided to share responsibility, and defer action, it is now in everyone’s interest to effect emigration reform in order to mitigate the progress of immigration reform and collateral damage at both ends of the bridge and throughout.
Were these folks here due to an earthquake or hurricane? TPS should be temporary, and the courts should cease usurping the executive and/or legislative functions.
We have some people here for 20 years under Temporary Protected Status!!
Law-itis!!
Unelected judges are the bane of America’s existence. 4 more years of Trump will remake the judiciary, but they’ll still be unelected self-designated arbiters of what the Executive can and cannot do.
Once Texas and Florida flip, we might be relying on those judges to protect us from the communists in the elected part of the government. It’s the wrong time to reduce the power of the judiciary.
Once Texas and Florida flip, we might be relying on those judges to protect us from the communists in the elected part of the government. It’s the wrong time to reduce the power of the judiciary.
TPS is temporary, but some temporary things last a long time, and can become permanent. The Cuban refugees were originally admitted temporarily, but once it became clear they would not be able to go home for a long time they were given permanent status.
The Salvadorans came because of natural disasters, but the fact is that they can’t go home at present because it’s not safe. We can’t pretend it is safe when it’s not. So their status needs to be extended until it is. But by then many of them will have put down serious roots, will have American children and grandchildren, so making them go home would be inhumane. If the Castro regime were to fall tomorrow, would you force all the Cubans who’ve been here 60 years to go back?!
Why?
This country is ours. It isn’t a Communist, Socialist or welfare State.
All entries should be merit-based, period.
A repeal of Hart-Celler would be a good start.
So said the people of Sodom.
Heaven forbid that we deport any of our MS-13 gangbangers.
There’s never anything “Temporary” about actions the federal govt takes that are bad for the country.
salvador is and has been a hellhole for forty years or more–at least its president has the cojones to admit that people are fleeing because various governments/administrations have failed to stabilize the country–he assumes responsibility on behalf of the government for the refugee problem–regardless of his personal politics, an honorable stance
despite our rather vigorous efforts(and those of many other, uhm, professionals involved)the situation there has not improved significantly in the last twenty-five years
TPS as used now is a freaking joke. You can’t say a whole country is too bad and all its people can come here. It’s a disgrace when a country’s president pushes for its citizens to be able to move to another country like that; he’s supposed to be encouraging them to live and thrive at home. And “temporary” is a couple years at most — not enough to have children here.
But if it can be used as a bargaining chip to get important cooperation, OK. And Bukele’s help has been important in sealing the cracks allowing illegal immigration thru Central America and Mexico.
Can I get a chorus of: “Worst Racist Ever!”
You forgot the periods.
Worst. Racist. Ever.