By Rhina Guidos
Catholic Press Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) – As the Catholic Church in the United States began observing National Migration Week, a time to reflect on the circumstances faced by migrants, immigrants, refugees and victims of human trafficking human beings, the administration of President Donald Trump announced that it would end an immigration program for thousands of Salvadorans, one of the largest modern immigrant groups in the country and which includes many Catholics.
More than 200,000 Salvadorans, living under special immigration status in the United States, now face the prospect of staying in the country illegally or returning to a country designated as one of the most dangerous in the world that does not is not at war, according to the US Department of Homeland. Security announced on January 8 that it was ending a provision called Temporary Protected Status after September 9, 2019.
“The decision to end TPS for El Salvador was made after a review of the disaster-related conditions upon which the country’s original designation was based,” DHS said in a statement. Affected Salvadorans can apply to stay under a different program, if eligible, or consider returning to their home country, the statement continued.
Citizens of El Salvador were able to apply for TPS in 2001 after the Central American nation experienced a series of major earthquakes. The TPS grants work permits and reprieve from deportation to certain individuals whose countries have experienced natural disasters, armed conflicts, or exceptional circumstances, to remain temporarily in the United States. El Salvador had previously received the designation in 1990 after thousands of Salvadorans fled to the United States fleeing a brutal civil war.
Supporters of the Salvadorans have said current TPS recipients should be allowed to stay because they have started families and have strong roots in the United States and local religious communities.
Bishops and Catholic organizations have expressed concern that Salvadorans will be forced to return to a socially unstable country, ravaged by gangs and named by various organizations as one of the most dangerous places in the world and not equipped to absorb such a large -scale repatriation.
“Based on our experience working with the Catholic Church and other local partners in El Salvador, the Salvadorian government does not have adequate humanitarian capacity to receive, protect or safely reintegrate into society so many people,” Catholic Relief Services said in a statement released shortly. after the announcement of the decision.
Dylan Corbett, executive director of the Texas-based Hope Border Institute, said the administration’s move would instead create an additional 200,000 “undocumented immigrants” in the United States.
“Today, the Trump administration is needlessly and cruelly endangering the safety, security, families and lives of more than 200,000 Salvadoran TPS recipients, including more than 35,000 in Texas. Deporting them will mean uprooting and destroying families and livelihoods and sending families back to poverty and violence in one of the most dangerous and volatile regions in the world,” Corbett said. “And make no mistake about it, we, as ‘Americans, through our trade and security policies, and because of our insatiable appetite for drugs, are morally implicated in the crisis in El Salvador and Central America.
The 192,000 children born in the United States to Salvadoran families are of great concern to Catholic organizations and leaders.
“This is yet another ill-conceived decision from an administration that ignores the immense contributions of immigrants to our country and that has lost sight of the long history of the United States as a haven for people fleeing danger in the ‘stranger,’ said Bishop Kevin W. Vann of Orange, Calif., chairman of the board of directors of the Maryland-based Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc.
“By ending TPS for El Salvador, hundreds of thousands of people, including U.S. citizen children and their extended families, will face harrowing decisions about how to continue with their lives,” Bishop Vann said. “The administration fails to explain how it makes the United States safer from deporting people who live and work legally as valued residents of our country. Instead of stripping their protections, our government should welcome these long-established members of our communities and find ways to give them a permanent path to residency.
In a statement, Bishop Joe S. Vásquez of Austin, Texas, chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Migration, said the administration’s decision was “heartbreaking.”
“We believe that God has called us to care for the alienated and the marginalized…. Our nation must not turn its back on TPS recipients and their families; they too are children of God,” he said in a statement.
While urging Congress to find a solution, Bishop Vásquez said the USCCB stands in solidarity with Salvadoran TPS recipients and the bishops will continue to pray for them, their families, “and all who are displaced or forced to flee their houses”.
The Center for Migration Studies in New York said 88% of Salvadoran TPS recipients are employed, many are homeowners and typically have lived in the United States for 21 years. Sending them back to El Salvador would be “destabilizing,” Donald Kerwin, the center’s executive director, said in a statement.
“Today’s decision creates many losers and no winners,” he said. “The losers are the TPS recipients themselves, their employers, their U.S. citizen children, their U.S. communities, El Salvador, and the U.S. economy. Another loser is the rule of law, as the ruling will relegate hard-working legal immigrants to those without status and force TPS recipients and their American children back into violence-ridden communities without good economic prospects.
The Ohio-based Ignatian Solidarity Network said for many Salvadorans, returning means returning to danger.
“We learned about the reality of Salvadoran TPS holders through the stories of individuals in our Ignatian network,” the organization said in a statement. “These women and men of all ages – whom we know as students, teachers, colleagues, parishioners – face an uncertain future and grave risks to themselves and their families as they contemplate a return to violence. and impunity in El Salvador.”
