CAIR Coalition Condemns TPS Decision

by Kathryn M. Doan, Esq.

The Trump administration’s decision to terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for roughly 200,000 Salvadorans, over 30,000 of who live in the DC metro area, is yet another example of a policy that is both ill-informed and gratuitously cruel.

According to the Center for Migration Studies, 88 percent of Salvadoran beneficiaries work, and a large number are homeowners.   On average they have lived in the United States for 21 years.  In addition, TPS holders are parents to over 190,000 U.S. citizen children.   While TPS holders and their families have become integral members of communities across the nation, the situation in El Salvador remains dangerously unstable.   El Salvador continues to continue to have one of the highest murder rates in the world with gang and drug related violence putting the lives of young and old in constant peril.  Moreover, El Salvador’s economy continues to struggle and remains highly dependent on the billions of dollars that TPS holders send home each year.

This decision is the definition of lose-lose.  TPS holders lose everything they have worked so hard for in the United States, employers lose valued employees and El Salvador loses an important source of funding, leading to further economic destabilization, which in turn will spur even more individuals to try to come to the United States.   

It is up to Congress to turn this into a win-win.  They can do so by passing legislation to provide TPS holders from El Salvador as well as other nationalities that have recently lost their TPS status, with legal permanent residence.   Families stay together, employers get to keep their workers, communities remain stable and thriving, and El Salvador and other countries do not face the added pressures of dealing with a sudden influx of individuals they cannot provide for, which will only worsen already difficult situations.

The administration has shown time and again that it has no understanding of the critical role that immigrants play in making and keeping America great.   Obsessed with building walls, be they made of concrete or crafted from policies that are leading to ever increasing numbers of our immigrant neighbors being rounded up and deported, this administration has done nothing but bring headache upon heartache to hundreds of thousands of immigrants who have made this country their home.

CAIR Coalition calls on Congress to act expediently in passing legislation to provide a pathway to citizenship to those who have already contributed so much to their adopted homeland.

bW

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