San Salvador.- Around 150,000 children and adolescents who are children of Salvadorans benefiting from Temporary Protected Status (TPS) in the U.S. will be affected if it is canceled, as the potential deportation of their parents would represent a family separation, Salvadoran expert on migration and human rights, Celia Medrano, warned EFE this Tuesday.
It is, Medrano explained, about “girls, boys, and adolescents who are children of these individuals, most of whom were born in the United States, and therefore are American by right.”
More than 170,000 Salvadoran immigrants remain in suspense in a race against time to avoid deportation, with less than a month left before the TPS for El Salvador expires, a benefit that has been in the sights of President Donald Trump’s administration since his first term.
“Rootedness in the United States”
The TPS for Salvadorans expires on September 9th and its termination would leave beneficiaries without work permits and exposed to deportation.
According to the migration expert, the Salvadoran TPS beneficiary “has lived in the United States for more than 20 years with regular immigration status, they master or handle the English language well, have employment and annual incomes between 40,000 and 50,000 dollars, pay taxes, have enjoyed medical insurance, own their own home or pay a mortgage, get around in their own vehicle, their primary family nucleus lives with them, and they have assimilated basic rules of democratic institutionality.”
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That is to say, he pointed out, “they have roots in the United States and high standards of living compared to El Salvador, so their social and economic integration in El Salvador could be very difficult, should they return to this country.”
“They would return to a country that presents socioeconomic and environmental conditions equal to or worse than the conditions of poverty and exclusion that forced them to leave,” he indicated.
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The change for affected Salvadorans
For almost half of ‘Tepesianos’, as TPS beneficiaries are known, “other options for immigration regularization are not feasible, since they have deportation orders hanging over their shoulders that were suspended at the time they were granted TPS, and if it (the status) is canceled, these deportation orders will be reactivated,” according to Medrano.
In the case of El Salvador, a country with which U.S. President Donald Trump currently maintains good relations, it is believed that the Executive will only let the protection for some 170,000 immigrants expire, according to data from The National Immigration Forum.
For the migration and human rights expert, it is advisable for El Salvador to “prepare conditions for forced return,” since “these Salvadorans will find a country very different from the one promoted abroad, with an increase in poverty, high levels of unemployment, and more than 60% of the economically active population in the informal sector.”
“They would also face serious restrictions on civic space, where 6 out of 10 Salvadorans prefer to refrain from expressing their opinion publicly for fear of suffering reprisals,” he warned.
