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<\/b>Standing and rallying in front of San Francisco\u2019s Federal Building on Jan. 5, Carmen Guardado prayed that she wouldn\u2019t lose her Temporary Protected Status (TPS).<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of my family is here, I don\u2019t have anyone in El Salvador,\u201d said Guardado, who has lived in the United States for 23 years, 16 of them under TPS. \u201cIt would really affect me if they sent me over there \u2026 I\u2019ve worked my whole life here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet despite Guardado\u2019s prayers, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kirstjen M. Nielsen announced Jan. 8 the termination of TPS for roughly 200,000 Salvadorans living in the United States, 49,100 of them in California. Salvadorans are largest group of TPS recipients. \u201cTo allow for an orderly transition,\u201d the termination of TPS for Salvadorans will go into effect on Sept. 9, 2019.<\/p>\n
The decision to end TPS (which offers temporary residency for 325,550 foreign nationals from 13 different countries who have fled violence and natural disasters) for Salvadorans comes after the termination of TPS for 50,000 Haitians set for July 22, 2019, and for 2,550 Nicaraguans on Jan. 5, 2019.<\/p>\n
News of this most recent attack on immigrants by the Trump administration has left many TPS holders and their families fearing the possibility of deportation.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday, I don\u2019t know how it is to live in El Salvador,\u201d said Guardado, who lives in Oakland and is member of Red Nacional Salvadore\u00f1a en el Exterior (RENASE), a national network for Salvadoran immigrants. \u201cI know there is delinquency and a lot of deaths everyday, and that scares me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Guardado fled her homeland more than two decades ago to escape domestic abuse. The father of her three daughters was a military man, who used drugs and abused her.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had to seperate myself from him,\u201d Guardado said.<\/p>\n
But when Guardado fled El Salvador, she left her daughters behind. She arrived in the United States, and overtime was able to bring over her daughters, who today are all U.S. residents.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m the only one [who doesn\u2019t have legal status],\u201d Guardado said. \u201cHow ironic life is. I … only have TPS, and I brought them after and they\u2019re residents now. But I\u2019m happy. Because of them, I have two grandkids.\u201d<\/p>\n
Having always worked and paid taxes while living in the United States, Guardado wonders what kind of work she would do if she were to be sent back home. She currently works at Rinse, a dry cleaning and laundry service. She sees an irony in the Trump administration\u2019s targeting of immigrants who contribute to the American workforce.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore Trump came into office, we were happy. They renewed our status every 18 months,\u201d Guardado said. \u201cI think he has aimed to ruin the lives of all us immigrants. He doesn\u2019t realize that we are the working hands that do the jobs that no American wants to do. The Americans that work in Rinse \u2026 they don\u2019t wash clothes, they don\u2019t fold clothes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWho works construction?\u201d she continued. \u201cHispanics. Who cleans bathrooms? Us. And him, what? Has he ever cleaned a bathroom? I don\u2019t think so.\u201d<\/p>\n
Why TPS?<\/b><\/p>\n
TPS for Salvadorans was officially designated in March 2001, after a series of powerful earthquakes devastated El Salvador. On Jan. 13, 2001, a 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck just off shore of El Salvador, killing at least 844 people, injuring more than 4,700, destroying 108,000 houses and damaging more than 150,000 buildings. The earthquakes continued into February of that year, with a\u00a0 <\/span>6.6 striking on Feb. 13, and a 6.1 striking on Feb. 28, according to the United States Geological Survey.<\/p>\n In her Jan. 8 announcement, DHS Secretary Nielsen \u201cdetermined that the original conditions caused by the 2001 earthquakes no longer exist. Thus, under the applicable statute, the current TPS designation must be terminated.\u201d A similar argument was made by then acting DHS Secretary Elaine Duke when she ended TPS for Haitians last November, stating \u201cthat those extraordinary but temporary conditions caused by the 2010 earthquake no longer exist.\u201d<\/p>\n But Adoubou Traore, an immigrant from the Ivory Coast who serves as co-director of the African Advocacy Network and executive director of African Immigrant and Refugee Resource Center (AIRRC) in San Francisco, disagrees. Traore spoke on behalf of Haitians at a Save TPS rally in San Francisco on Jan. 5, 2018.<\/p>\n \u201cWe all heard what happened in Haiti in 2010. And we know what was there before the earthquake. And we don\u2019t believe that anybody seriously can stand in front of an entire people and then say, \u2018Haiti has been able to overcome the damages after this natural calamity,\u2019\u201d said Traore. \u201cLet\u2019s be more serious about that.\u201d<\/p>\n Ramon Cardona, an immigrant from El Salvador and local radio host, said that TPS for Salvadorans was influenced by the Salvadoran Civil War, which was funded and armed by the United States in 1980. The war was devastating, resulting in over 70,000 casualties and nearly 500,000 refugees.<\/p>\n \u201cThat helped a lot at that time with Congress to win Temporary Protected Status,\u201d Cardona said. \u201cIt was a victory of the the people here in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n Many in immigrant activist circles are hoping that Congress can find a permanent solution for TPS holders. Guardado is personally longing to become a citizen.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like I\u2019m from here,\u201d Guardado said, who has bought a home and raised her daughters through her work in restaurants, cleaning houses and hotels. \u201cFor 23 years, I\u2019ve worked and struggled here. I feel I\u2019ve earned it.\u201d<\/p>\n Rina Valle, a TPS holder from El Salvador who came to the U.S. 18 years ago, is torn between being hopeful for a permanent solution and being worried about having to return to El Salvador.<\/p>\n Living in Hayward, Valle manages a janitorial company in San Francisco. Her entire family lives here.<\/p>\n \u201c[TPS] opened up a lot of doors for us. But above all, there isn\u2019t fear to simply go out and make a life for ourselves in this country,\u201d she said. \u201cWe never thought they would make such a drastic decision like this without thinking of the children, business owners and homeowners. Personally, I think things are going to fall down for me, and I don\u2019t know what I\u2019m going to do.\u201d<\/p>\n The facts about TPS <\/b><\/p>\n According to a 2017 study by the Journal on Migration and Human Security, which focused on the three countries with the highest TPS recipients (El Salvador, Honduras and Haiti), the TPS labor force participation rate from those three countries was 81 to 88 percent, a higher rate than the total U.S. population at 63 percent.<\/p>\n The study also noted that about 273,200 of the children of these TPS holders are U.S. citizens, and 87 percent speak at least some English, and more than half speak English well, very well, or only English. The study also cited that about 27,100 (11 percent) of those in the labor force are self-employed, and of the 205,900 households from these three countries, 61,100 have mortgages.<\/p>\n Laura Sanchez, staff attorney and program director at CARECEN SF, has become familiar with the stories of anguish from people who have lived and paid taxes in the United States for close to two decades, and now have no clue as to what they\u2019re going to do next.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s part of a bigger plan to just systematically attack the immigrant community,\u201d she said. \u201cI think it\u2019s one piece of a big puzzle that they\u2019re implementing.\u201d<\/p>\n Sanchez urges TPS recipients to be screened by an attorney or a nonprofit, such as CARECEN.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of people may be eligible for other types of immigration relief that they\u2019re just not aware of,\u201d she said, noting that CARECEN is currently offering consultations for TPS holders from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m., Monday-Friday.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s beautiful that we\u2019re out here, but we need to be walking the halls of Congress,\u201d Sanchez said. \u201cThe DACA recipients, they\u2019re great in the sense of organizing. We need to be holding hands with them.\u201d<\/p>\n For those seeking more information about the options for TPS holders from El Salvador, a forum has been scheduled for Saturday, Jan. 13 at the Salvadoran Consulate in San Francisco, located at 507 Polk St. (between Turk Street and Golden Gate Avenue) from 2 to 4 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [su_carousel source=”media: 36620,36621,36622,36623,36631,36625″ limit=”65″ link=”lightbox” target=”blank” width=”800″ height=”540″ responsive=”no” items=”1″][su_carousel limit=”65″ link=”lightbox” target=”blank” width=”800″ height=”540″ responsive=”no” items=”1″] [\/su_carousel] Standing and rallying in front of San Francisco\u2019s Federal Building on Jan. 5, Carmen Guardado prayed that she wouldn\u2019t lose her Temporary Protected Status (TPS). \u201cAll of my family is here, I don\u2019t have anyone in El […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":36622,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3929],"tags":[15714,15722,15712,5957,12751,4715,15314,5579,15720,15710,9559,4723,15716,15724,15726,15718,14870,15312,11849],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-36619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-en","tag-adoubou-traore","tag-carecen-sf","tag-carmen-guardado","tag-department-of-homeland-security-en","tag-dhs-en","tag-el-salvador-en","tag-elaine-duke","tag-haiti-en","tag-journal-on-migration-and-human-security","tag-kirstjen-m-nielsen","tag-laura-sanchez","tag-nicaragua-en","tag-ramon-cardona","tag-red-nacional-salvadorena-en-el-exterior-en","tag-renase-en","tag-rina-valle","tag-temporary-protected-status","tag-tps","tag-trump","entry"],"yoast_head":"\n