Two California state lawmakers are planning to request an additional $10 million in state funds in an effort to help immigrants from El Salvador who are now facing deportation.
Assembly members Miguel Santiago and Wendy Carrillo — both Democrats from Los Angeles — are planning to ask that an additional $10 million be put toward a state legal defense fund, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The money — which the two lawmakers plan to request this week through legislation — would go toward assisting Salvadorans covered by Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to find other means of legally staying in the U.S.
{mosads}“This is one more blow to the area I represent, and I think enough is enough,” Santiago said Monday.
“We can’t just sit here and let lives be destroyed.”
The announcement is the fourth such change to TPS that has been made by the Trump administration.
The Salvadorans affected by the order have been in the U.S. since at least 2001, when TPS status was granted after two devastating earthquakes ravaged the country. The decision also allowed hundreds of thousands of Salvadoran civil war refugees who were in the United States legally or illegally to remain and work here.
TPS benefits are given to foreign citizens in the U.S. whose home countries underwent devastating natural or man-made disasters.
Last year, state lawmakers in California approved $65 million to go toward legal services for immigrants — such as immigrant rights groups and a coalition of legal services agencies.