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🇭🇳 Honduras /Elections & Politics

Salvadoran opposition lawmakers hope U.S. will extend TPS protection

From Proceso Digital · () Spanish

Translated from Spanish and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Named sources Ongoing story
  • Salvadoran opposition lawmakers said they hope the United States will renew TPS for more than 170,000 Salvadorans living there under the program.
  • They warned that expiration could cost recipients their work permits and legal status, forcing difficult decisions about returning to El Salvador and separating from U.S.-citizen children.
  • The TPS program began for Salvadorans in 2001 after two earthquakes, while an earlier cancellation order remained in place through court action.

More than 170,000 Salvadorans in the United States are facing the end of their Temporary Protected Status on September 9, a deadline opposition lawmakers say could change their lives abruptly.

Francisco Lira, a lawmaker from the right-wing ARENA party, said he still hoped the Donald Trump administration would reconsider and extend the protection. If it does not, he said, the Salvadoran government must explain what public policy it will use for its nationals affected by the decision.

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

· Francisco LiraThe ARENA lawmaker expressed hope that the United States would renew TPS for Salvadorans.

Claudia Ortiz of the centre-right VAMOS party described the situation as “extremely delicate.” She criticised what she said was the absence of any reaction from the Salvadoran government. Some Salvadorans had already lost their jobs, she said, while others faced the choice of leaving U.S.-citizen children behind or bringing them to a country they barely know.

It is extremely delicate, but it is even more delicate that there has not been a word from the Salvadoran government.

· Claudia OrtizThe VAMOS lawmaker criticised the government’s lack of a public response.

The expiration would strip those covered by TPS of their work permits and legal status, leaving them at immediate risk of deportation. The United States has already ended TPS for several other countries, including Haiti, Venezuela and Afghanistan. For El Salvador, the administration is expected to allow the protection to expire despite current ties between the two governments.

The Department of Homeland Security ordered the programme cancelled in January 2018, giving about 180,000 Salvadorans then covered by TPS 18 months to find another route to residency or leave the country. A court order kept the programme in place after beneficiaries and their U.S.-born children argued that the government had acted for discriminatory and racist reasons. The United States first granted Salvadorans TPS in 2001, after two earthquakes struck the country.

It is alarming and painful to see cases of people who are already losing their jobs over this issue.

· Claudia OrtizOrtiz described the immediate effects of the possible end of TPS.
About this summary

Originally published by Proceso Digital in Spanish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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