Should temporary mean temporary? The coming immigration crisis

The U.S. ambassador to El Salvador’s declaration that “the first word in TPS is temporary” caused barely a ripple in the United States when she uttered it in June 2017, but is an ominous warning for hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans.

Both for those living in the United States under Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and for their loved ones back home, March 9, 2018, when El Salvador’s TPS designation is set to expire, looms large.

Should the president and secretary of Homeland Security decide not to extend TPS by Jan. 9, 2018, two hundred thousand Salvadorans who have legally resided and worked in the United States since 2001 will have their lives thrown into disarray. Contrary to xenophobic rhetoric, immigrants pay taxes and are net contributors to the economy.

{mosads}Donald Trump rose to the presidency in part by demonizing immigrants who crossed the border illegally, but as the possibility that Salvadoran TPS is not extended demonstrates, the concepts of legality and of borders are more fluid than Trump’s rhetoric.

Salvadorans first gained TPS status when President Bush provided for such protection following several deadly earthquakes in El Salvador in 2001. Since then it has been extended multiple times; the secretary of Homeland Security noted when announcing the most recent extension that “El Salvador remains unable, temporarily, to handle adequately the return of its nationals.”

This has not changed; if anything, things are much worse in El Salvador than they were in 2001. As an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times observed in 2016, “It’s official. El Salvador is the world’s most violent country and its capital, San Salvador, is the world’s most homicidal city. Salvadoran cities have seen more blood spilled than most conflict zones.” True, the murder rate in 2017 is way down from 2016, but as the most recent State Department Travel Advisory for Americans cautions, “El Salvador has one of the highest homicide levels in the world and crimes such as extortion, assault and robbery are common.”

If TPS is not extended, Salvadorans will face a terrible choice: return to a dangerous country with few opportunities, leaving behind the lives they built in the United States, or stay but stay underground. For many, this choice will be all the more difficult because their children (or some of their children) are U.S. citizens by birth.

There are beautiful things about El Salvador. The beaches are amazing, the weather is perfect, and there is a cultural appreciation of the importance of family. For those with enough money to buy protection and avoid the gang-controlled parts of the country, El Salvador can be a great place to live. But for those kicked out of the United States with little option but to return to areas under the thumb of the MS-13 or 18 gangs, the country can be incredibly dangerous.

Salvadorans came to the United States for a variety of reasons. Some were fleeing violence, others came seeking economic opportunity. The law makes a distinction between these two motivations and is generally hostile to economic migration.

But whatever the reason they originally left El Salvador, Salvadorans with TPS today have legitimate reason to fear returning. Immigrant rights advocates are pushing to have migrants from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala recognized as “refugees,” but the Trump administration is likely to be generally unreceptive to such claims. This position is somewhat ironic given that at the end of July, Attorney General Jeff Sessions flew to El Salvador for meetings about how to confront MS-13 and has even indicated that the gang might be designated a terrorist organization.

But apart from the legal fights and even the question of security in El Salvador, the question of whether the United States should extend TPS or not is largely a moral one. One of the largest statues on the road from the Monseñor Óscar Arnulfo Romero International Airport to San Salvador is dedicated to greeting “hermanos lejanos,” faraway brothers, returning to the country.

It is a fitting tribute to the deep familial and cultural connections that remain even after people are forced to abandon their homeland. But it is equally important to recognize that for many Salvadorans who have legally resided and worked in the United States since 2001, this is now their homeland and they are now our brothers and sisters.

As the TPS clock counts down to March 2018, advocacy organizations will try to raise public awareness of the importance of extending El Salvador’s TPS designation, and hopefully they will succeed. It would be great if we as a nation did more to live up to the words at the base of the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” But I fear that unless the cause is taken up by a broad swath of the population who recognize that the Salvadorans in their midst are already part of our community, March 2018 will be yet another moral failure of this administration.

Ezra Rosser is a law professor at American University Washington College of Law. You can follow him on Twitter @EzraRosser. 

The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.