Salvadoran opposition lawmakers hope the United States will extend TPS for more than 170,000 Salvadorans

Opposition lawmakers in El Salvador are holding out hope that the United States will extend Temporary Protected Status for more than 170,000 Salvadorans before the program expires on Sept. 9.

Francisco Lira, a lawmaker from the right-wing Arena party, said he still hoped the agreement would be renewed. He urged Donald Trump’s administration to reconsider and extend the deadline. If it did not, he said, the Salvadoran government should explain what public policy it would use for Salvadorans affected by the decision.

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I still hold out hope, for the good of the country, that this agreement will be renewed.

Claudia Ortiz of the center-right Vamos party described the situation as “extremely delicate” and said it was even more serious that the Salvadoran government had offered no response. She said some people were already losing their jobs and facing the choice of leaving behind U.S.-citizen children or bringing them to a country they barely know.

The end of TPS would cost beneficiaries their work permits and legal status to live in the United States, putting them at imminent risk of deportation. Ortiz said El Salvador needed to prepare for any decision by the U.S. administration.

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reconsider and extend the deadline

The White House has already ended TPS for several countries, including Haiti, Venezuela and Afghanistan. For Salvadorans, the protection was set to expire despite what the article describes as good relations between Trump and El Salvador’s government.

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extremely delicate

The Department of Homeland Security ordered the cancellation of Salvadoran TPS in January 2018, giving roughly 180,000 beneficiaries at the time 18 months to seek another route to residency or leave the country. A court order kept the program in place after beneficiaries and their U.S.-born children argued that the decision relied on discriminatory and racist reasons.

The program began in 2001 under President George W. Bush after two earthquakes struck El Salvador.

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It is alarming and painful that people are already losing their jobs over this issue, and that people have to decide whether to leave their citizen children behind or bring them to a country they do not know.