On January 8, 2018, the Trump administration announced that it will end Temporary Protection Status (TPS) for the 200,000 Salvadorans who came to the United States nearly two decades ago after El Salvador was hit with a pair of devastating earthquakes in 2001. To learn more about TPS, please click here. Since 2001, Salvadorans on TPS were legally allowed to work and live in the United States. Young children who came to the United States at the time have spent their entire lives in the States and do not have any memory of El Salvador. Families with children born in the United States is facing separation as parents and older children will be forcibly deported. On Monday, Homeland Security officials announced that El Salvador is sufficiently rebuilt and recovered enough that the emergency declaration is no longer necessary. Salvadorans who currently have TPS must return to their homeland by September 2019 or become undocumented if they remain without legal protections. This is the latest reversal by the Trump administration of immigration policies after also terminating TPS for Nicaragua, Haiti, and Sudan nationals. This move is by far the one with the biggest impact as Salvadorans were the largest group of foreigners benefiting from TPS, which shielded them from deportation if they arrived in the United States illegally. The ending of protection for Salvadoran, Haitians, and Nicaraguans leaves fewer than 100,000 people in the program.
