The End of Salvadorans' Protected Status

Photo by Linda Hess Miller

On January 8, the Trump administration announced that 200,000 Salvadorans must leave the U.S. These Salvadorans had been allowed to live here since 2001 through the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program and have built lives in the U.S. Many of them are relatives of the children the Young Center works with—aunts, uncles, siblings who sponsor the children out of federal custody.

Salvadorans received TPS in 2001 after a pair of earthquakes devastated their country, and have received extensions for the past 17 years due to extreme gang violence and poverty. These are problems that the U.S. helped create, by funding a Salvadoran civil war in the 1980s, and by deporting U.S.-residing gang members to El Salvador in the 1990s and 2000s.

This new policy is devastating for the Salvadorans who have built lives and families here in the U.S. It will wrench apart families, separating children from parents and relatives who will have to return to El Salvador. 

To learn more about why Salvadorans have protected status in the U.S., what will happen to children and families now that TPS has been taken away, and how the U.S. contributed to the problems El Salvador faces today, listen to this 20-minute podcast on ‘The Daily’ by The New York Times.