Have we really become a heartless and headless people?
It certainly isn't Mr Trump alone who promotes narrow and confining thoughts of this sort. Seventeen years without a peep from our government and all of a sudden it is time to "go home"? Who is kidding who?
What about the fact that this is home to these people escapes the mental confines of some of those in government? Do I still live in the America of my youth?
Impossible to accept these views are being voiced by citizens who proclaim our nation to be the land of the free, let alone home of the brave
1
"Last year, TPS recipients alone sent over $500 million back to El Salvador."
Why are the people in El Salvador lazily relying on remittances from families in the US? They can't get jobs or start businesses and become self-reliant? The quote also kills off the lie that illegal aliens have no knowledge of and no ties to Latin American countries, and would be at a loss if forced to return.
2
"This decision also has distinctly negative implications for El Salvador’s already sclerotic economy."
I constantly read what an economic benefit these illegal immigrants** are. Perhaps they can benefit their home economies.
**They are not undocumented because they are not entitled to documents. They have entered or remained in the US in contravention of federal law, which is to say, they have immigrated illegally. Or does the left think we should pick and choose which laws to enforce?
2
I am very stridently anti-amnesty for illegal aliens. Build that wall! Or fence. Or combination thereof. I don't give a flip who pays for it. Don't care if there is a special one time tax levy. Just build it. And enact e-verify today!
I mention that to illustrate the fact that I have very little empathy for law breaking invaders who enter our country illegally. However, these folks followed the rules and came here legally. I understand that temporary means temporary. At least it should. 17 years is not temporary.
At this point, there must be a middle ground. For those that have committed no crimes, have become productive members of society, have not spent years on the dole, and who speak English, there needs to be a "pathway to citizenship."
Then seal our borders and put an immediate end to this idiotic "temporary" program.
2
"The Displaced Persons Act of 1948". Can anyone compare the circumstances between conditions in postwar Europe and present day Central America and the Caribbean nations?
Google this Act and if you or a relative lived at that time please share with the rest of us your experience.
I myself think that the withdrawal of TPS without giving people a legal remedy is cruel, stupid and counterproductive.
1
Spite plus Racism plus Ignorance: Trump in a nutshell. And I DO mean
NUT. Thanks, GOP. NOVEMBER.
2
The cruelty of the trump administration, as well as the stupidity of this policy, will be something we will be facing for a long time.
As our population ages, who do these men of wealth think will care for those who are unable to care for themselves? Who do they think will continue the work of revitalizing neighborhoods that immigrants have undertaken? Those being thrown out have been a vital part of our country's fabric. In a very few years, we will be scratching our heads at the dumbness of these deportations, all to temporarily improve demographics for a dying republican party, as well as to appease the most racist parts of the base.
2
They were granted temporary protected status after earthquakes in 2001.
Why are they here 17 years later ??
Temporary ???
2
It seems the recipients of these temporary programs forget that their status is temporary. Temporary Foreign Workers who come to Canada for jobs do not want to go home and efforts are underway to transform some cities into sanctuary cities to accommodate the social and health care needs of the TFW and the undocumented. The Temporary Foreign Workers Program should be renamed the Permanent Foreign Workers Program. On the Canadians news report that Canada is bracing for an influx from the US of border hoppers.
1
The New York Times seems not to understand that there is such a thing as the law and that temporary means temporary.
Oh well, maybe there is no such thing as the law and perhaps not even such a thing as the constitution.
It is simply a case of "can you get away with it?"
2
I am not a Trump supporter but I want all illegals and their children out of my country. It's not just Trump's base that is anti-immigrant. It is millions of Americans who go into a store, a neighborhood, etc. and feel like this is not even the U.S. anymore. I felt that way Saturday morning in the Golden Gate section of a very wealthy Naples, FL. At the Winn Dixie in Golden Gate, I, was, in effect, in a foreign country. No one spoke English. El Salvador has one of the world's highest homicide rates. U.S. dollars account for 17% of Salvador's GDP and 80% of their economic growth. Why is this our problem? Enough already. Why does the NYT always align itself with unpopular initiatives?
3
As I understand it, Trump wants to make a deal: We amnesty the DACA people in exchange for the wall and an end to chain migration.
He's simply enforcing the laws, nothing more.
You're reading too much into it.
2
If it does't end I will never support bringing in one more temporary natural disaster refugee. Let Cuba and China step up next time. We can fly them in.
1
The administration's ruling to end the temporary status of millions of Latinos who call America home is insensitive and mean-spirited. The understanding was that they would someday return to their own countries but meanwhile, they have established families, businesses and ties to their adopted communities. Many of their children do not speak Spanish and would be obliged to start a new life in a land they don't know and a culture of which they know nothing.
These families weren't idle or indolent, but were productive and have children ready to enter college or opportunities for careers they would never have if forced to return to El Salvador. The administration's revocation of temporary status for Latinos is crueler than any border wall the president could ever build. This edict crushes the hopes and faith these families had in the current system of justice America.
This just confirms my belief that Trump is both a bigot and a sociopath. How could anyone tear up 200,000 lives, peoples, families, and children. These people are the fabric of our diverse nation and they should be celebrated not defiled. There should be a national uprising against this policy. We each are responsible for this travesty if we do nothing!
1
King Solomon, where are you and your wisdom. The tragedy of disrupting these families is rivaled only by a democratic party that has played politics with them as a voting block and would rather sit back and watch them and their familes destroyed, all so that they can have the “issue” for the next election. Are you listening, Chuck?
If we deport El Salvadorans, it is likely many of the criminal gang members will be deported, along with the middle class fathers who can work to stabilize their home country.
1
I believe that 17 months is temporary, but 17 years sounds permanent. I would like to think that in 17 years these Salvadorians have created a new life for themselves. Just who is putting these ideas in Trumps head? I cannot believe that he would come up with this by himself. There are some very cruel people living in our country. Maybe they should be the ones to leave and find their utopia somewhere else.
Like interment for American citizens of Japanese origin during WWII with a twist. Buy their assets for pennies on the dollar and then ship them out of the country.
This is the law of unintended consequences. Some are obvious to anyone who thinks about things for over 20 seconds, some require actually knowing something about what you are trying to accomplish and how things work in the real world. The real world is complicated. Trump's daily briefing paper has to be limited to one page because he gets bored by complicated details. He can be counted on to overlook even the obvious consequences of his "decisions." He is not only stupid and clueless, he has no idea that he's stupid and clueless.
2
Trump has absolutely no humanity.
1
I have heard over and over that one reason to allow Salvadorans who are here under TPS to stay is that the Salvadoran economy depends on remittances from workers in the US. This morning on NPR there was a sob story about an older couple depending on money from one son who is here under TPS and 3 more in the US illegally. Seriously? Maybe another way to look at this is to think about what would happen if that money, earned in the US, stayed in the US? It's over 600M a year while we educate their children and provide all kinds of community services while they choose to send money out of the US. Another outcome of putting a stop to this will allow wages for low skill jobs to rise so that legal immigrants and US natives have a chance to make a living wage.
2
Initially I was concerned, but after I understand the situation better, I'm not crying for them at all. Just because they are no longer TPS doesn't mean they'll be deported. Clearly they're coming across the Mexican border, so building a wall and increasing border protection can alleviate this entire mess. And then ICE can concentrate on permanently deporting the criminals and ignore the good ones just like they've always done.
This is just another example of a press that operates on bad information, metaphors and group think. Blah, blah, blah, NYT.
2
What was unjust was allowing people in a temporary program to remain here for 17 years! We created the impression by not ending this program and sending them back that they could stay until another amnesty was granted to millions of people like it was in the late 80's. So now the chickens have come home to roost. Congress and our past presidents are to blame for this. TEMPORARY means just that. Should I classify a job I'm working at temporary when I have been working that same job for 17 years!
I'm not a fan of the President in the least. But in this instance he is placing this squarely on the shoulders of who it belongs too, Congress. And the far left and far right are not on solid ground with their insistence that their way is the only way. The vast, vast majority of the American people are not for closing the doors to LEGAL immigration, nor are they game for the OPEN boarder concept of allowing everyone in and once they are here awhile they are entitled to stay and/or become citizens because they broke our immigration laws. The answer is in the fair middle which is what Americans want!
Our morons in Congress who side with the fringes are to blame and eventually when main stream candidates once again decide to run those individuals will be looking to new jobs. The pendulum swings or should pretty close to the middle of the road. On immigration it hasn't
What is the Democratic position on immigration? It seems to be that if you come from Asia, Africa, Europe, or Canada to go through the multi-year process. If you mess up with a DUI, you're out. If you have temp status and overstay your visa, goodbye. But if you walk across the southern border or come from a Spanish-speaking country (Spain excluded) through a temporary program, then it's racist and heartless to enforce the law.
12
Let us see...An argument here is that the US has invested $4.4 billion over 50 years...that's $$8.8 million a year. And the article states that these people living in the US sent $500 million back last year alone. Kind of a financial drain on the US, where money spent here would promote business, buy American, etc., don't you think.
If, as Leonhardt claims, these people are "deeply ensconsed" in American society, why are they holding up signs written in Spanish?
"de facto" isn't the law, despite the realization that the US has been lax in enforcing the real law, until now.
Isn't much of MS-13 from El Salvador?
I, among many others, do not path to citizenship for those who came here illegally or stayed illegally, especially ahead of those who did it legally, and those who are waiting to be processed.
Leonhardt quotes co-worker Bret Stephens, who, with his left wing/neoliberal mind, that the Trump policy of enforcement is unAmerican and shameful..So? Stephens has no standing, though he is entitled to his opinion.
8
As usual, the comments to a deportation article make me even more depressed than the daily news in these horrid times. I'm ashamed of those self-professed liberals who rationalize this senseless cruelty, of those of any persuasion who believe this is good for the economy, and the pervasive simplemindedness on an extraordinarily complex issue.
I'm ashamed of my country.
3
This is all a 'legal' excuse for Trump to purge America of Latinos. He does not represent all Americans, only his base of white supremacists and only those with enormous wealth who also happen to be males. Narcissists only see mirror images of themselves.
He will not only change the face of America, but the faces of Americans if he is allowed to remain as our faux president. Trump proves daily that he is the enemy within. He is a hater of most of humanity, a destroyer of our democracy and our Constitution, and an ongoing threat to our national security and American justice system. He also is in very poor mental health. The reasons for removing him are like a laundry list but we can't get our own Congress to move on our behalf. America is indeed broken.
2
President Trump is treading waters on which no other president has had the guts to do....putting an end to faulty and unconstitutional immigrant rules that favor illegal aliens over American citizens. Congress must fix our broken immigration system, and their #1 priority should be shortening the time immigrants have LEGALLY applied for legal/green card status in this country. Next, end chain migration NOW. Give current DACA enrollees legal permanent residence, then let them go to the back of the line and apply for citizenship. End DACA forever for any future illegals. The TPS program for El Salvadorians should be terminated and their government should give them every available opportunity and monetary relief to bring their American found skills to their home country to help make El Salvador great again! A portion of the billions of US dollar$ the American taxpayer gives to their government should be sit aside for their documented citizens residing illegally in the United States.
7
why have laws at all if they are to be ignored? The status was temporary; the visitors knew this from the beginning! WHY -- do some think it is okay to pick and choose which laws we will enforce? Anyone with common sense knows it doesn't work that way.
If you are an American citizen, and you break the law, chances are you will go to jail and be separated from your family; are we to disregard consequences for citizen lawbreakers who have family? The arguments against enforcing the law are just ridiculous.
9
Trump's decision to export TPS immigrants to their native country is designed to put pressure on Democrats and moderate Republicans to grant his wish to build a wall. Will it work? We'll see. The President is so ruthless and heartless.
1
People who came in illegally or overstayed their visas have absolutely no say on what our government should or should not do. They knew exactly what they were doing and used it against us. They chose to break the law, no matter how long ago they have to accept the consequences. All the arguments I am hearing are sob stories and overblown emotions. They want to come here ,they have to apply. They don't go through the procedures because they know they might be rejected for whatever reason. They are so many of them they can literally cause huge problems for the US If they organize. They have already done that. I didn't vote for Hillary Clinton because of her stand on immigration. I didn't vote for Donald Trump either. I think he's a chaotic man. On this issue I will vote for him. The independents and the Democrats are already rejoicing because they think they're going to be turning the tables around. They should be thinking twice. This problem has to be fixed and it has to be fixed now. We are enjoying a period of economic growth at this moment, they are usually followed by serious recessions which are getting longer and longer. I, quite frankly don't like what I see. I am a naturalized citizen and a diehard liberal. Illegal immigration is a huge problem.
8
Trump and Trump supporters can dress it up in legal arguments all they want. They can call people temporary or call them illegal, rant about economic migrants or go on about border control. It does not matter, because it fools no one. What they are really expressing is good old fashioned racism. In some of the comments on this article the racism is only barely veiled.
Racism is immoral. Deporting refugees is immoral. Rather than deporting refugees or turning them away, America should be taking in more. The failure to do so is shameful.
Moreover, when refugees are allowed to stay and build a life in our country, they generally make fine Americans who could teach Trump and his supporters a thing or two about good citizenship.
3
Last month the Congressional Budget Office released a report stating that if DACA people get amnesty it will cost American tax payers 26 billion dollars. They and their extended family members who they will bring here through chain migration will be eligible to receive welfare, food stamps, subsidized housing, health care, and education. And then add the costs of social services and incarceration. This country does not need more poor, uneducated, unskilled, non-English speaking people some of who are illiterate in their own language.
Tonight, another frigid night in NYC, hundreds of homeless are sleeping in the subways and on subways, most often the E train. Our country should be spending money on our homeless, mentally ill, and drug/alcohol addicted citizens instead of spending on illegal immigrants who should not be here.
The 200,000 Salvadorans (MS-13 among them?) plus the 200,000 children they have given birth to here have been and will continue to cost American middle class tax payers. They are now demanding to be made citizens when they have no right to demand anything, They should go back to El Salvador and make demands on their country. We cannot accept all the poor of the world, lest we turn into a third world country ourselves. And then we can help no one.
10
One thing I am not seeing in this whole immigration debate is any empathy for those in lawful non-immigrant status seeking to become permanent residence but stymied by a quota system based on country of birth and the inefficiencies of the agencies charged with processing these cases - primarily Indian and Chinese natives. Politicians like Dick Durbin talk a good game regarding DACA and TPS recipients, but continually lambast non-immigrant visa categories such as the H-1B, claiming that the people seeking them are not the "best and brightest". Since a lot of comments claim that removing DACA and TPS is an attempt to "Make America White Again", why is there no outpouring of sympathy for Indian and Chinese natives?
3
Make Congress do their job. Fix the entire immigration system
2
Virtually all media I have seen on this subject fail to explain clearly what Temporary Protected Status is (and is not), or to give any background on the history of special treatment for Salvadorans. To get TPS, Salvadorans had to be in the United States prior to the date it was enacted in response to the earthquake. The majority of those were here illegally at the time. TPS conferred no legal status, merely stayed deportation until its expiration. There was previously a special "path to citizenship" for Salvadorans due in part to our history of interference in their country, known as NACARA. The folks in limbo now are those who entered illegally or violated visas subsequent to the NACARA program. Those with TPS could apply for legal status under the same terms as any other foreigners during the 2001-2019 period of TPS. Many did, and became green card holders and citizens. Those who remain undocumented and have close U.S. relatives may be eligible for yet another benefit that would allow them to remain in the United States, called cancellation of removal. NACARA and TPS were not made available to all war torn or desperately poor and misruled countries, many of which are worse than El Salvador. Most that were granted TPS were told to go home a lot sooner after first getting TPS, such as the Bosnians and the Sierra Leoneans. The knee-jerk hysteria is disproportionate here.
9
A few questions to those who want to end T.P.S., whatever the reasons the cite here in the comments.
When one writes that US taxpayers cannot afford to support "illegal aliens," what does that mean? Does it mean that the same US taxpayers who are wearing clothing made in sweatshops by workers paid wages that are far from any concept of a living wage are now going to act to take care of the people in Puerto Rico whose lives are in ruins? Hardly (yes, I can read your minds).
Does acting within the confines of law mean that those who cite this are going to put their bodies on the line to stop the US from invading countries, such as Iraq? Again, no.
On what basis do those posting here think that the US government will take care of US citizens first and foremost? Even a Cliff Notes version of US History will tell us that the US never has, and never will, take care of "its own." Unless there's a profit in it. And therein lies the rub.
3
You assume that the average American requests that their clothes be made in sweatshops by exploited workers making slave wages. I don't recall being asked by our government whether I'd accept that bargain in exchange for cheap clothes. Do you?
3
think the case you are making is for us never to let our immigration policy get so far out of control.
Immigration is not social welfare. People should be allowed in if they bring something to the party and "diversity" is not part of that. People should know english, be educated, have a willingness to assimilate.
In the present case, I for one do not like making decisions based on threat. Expel these people and make sure that it does not happen again.
9
It seems that the U.S. like some of the xenophobic EU countries are formulating their immigration policy on their version of "Christian Values" by treating the more vulnerable among God's creatures with contempt and cruelty. Wonder what Jesus would do?
2
That is why I voted for Trump. The buck stops somewhere.
7
It has been clear for over 20 years that America' s immigration 'policy' is in fact nonexistent. Successive administrations have kicked the can down the road and Congress has done the same unwilling to confront the issues involved head on.
So here we are in 2018 with Dear Leader supposedly willing to right this abdication of responsibility of the past.
Problem is Trump is a mean and cruel racist and bigot who is using his position to rile the supposed masses who object to immigration by all non-whites. All of a sudden rules and the law apply because it suits the GOP white nationalist agenda. And the Democrats are powerless to invoke any policy that would reflect the benefits of immigration.
The desire for cooperation, compromise and humane and family supporting legislation is met with the GOP cry of we're in charge now. It's their chance to get rid of them all!
If, If any true legislation is passed in this atmosphere, it will be flawed due to lack of bipartisan effort and America will be no better. The timing could not be worse. Past failures have come to haunt in cruel and Un-American ways.
One thing the author doesn't mention is also something I never hear our elected leaders discussing either. The truth, whether people like it or not, is that entire industries rely on immigrant labor, undocumented, temporary or not. Construction, restaurant, hospitality, farm labor. All these are experiencing labor shortages, in part due to deportations. The IRS is happy to provide taxpayer ID numbers so we collect taxes on their labor but technically they'd never be able to collect on social security, medicare or medicaid.
Has anyone thought about what happens if all those people are gone, or even a significant portion of them? It would be challenging for lawmakers to adopt some kind of policy to allow people, free from fear, to remain here and work under certain guidelines. But it would be worth it.
To the people who say they could have applied for citizenship in all these years, sure, they might have. But given our current state of affairs where ICE agents are trolling courtroom hallways, hospitals, schools and demanding logs from motels, would YOU be afraid to walk into an immigration office and apply to be a citizen?
2
.I have a friend who once tried to enroll in a French university though he was in the country illegally. You can bet that didn't get very far.
2
You know, if the author of this argument is trying to drum up sympathy for Salvadorans, saying they're the type of people who will readily get chummy with MS-13 probably isn't the best way to do that...
All of that aside, TPS seems like it's designed to short-circuit our immigration system. If El Salvador is truly unlivable and full of murderous street gangs, shouldn't these migrants be able to apply for refugee status? Furthermore, the reason for ending TPS is that the longer it goes on the more painful it will be to pull the bandaid off. Our whole immigration system is pretty much as full of different little programs and loopholes as the Trump Tax Scam. In the long run, the only way forward is to get rid of all these one off exceptions and programs that benefit some small particular ethnic group(s).
4
The forced and heartless ejection of contributing and capable refugees back to other countries, fracturing families, will populate the world outside with embittered detractors who will never see America favorably again. Not just the creation of enemies, but the creation of an image of the USA as a brutal unthinking ugly country, not only in its image abroad, but in its image to Americans themselves, who are not interested in imperiling and destroying families, but nonetheless will see expansion of ICE tactics already engaged in inhumanity in the name of America.
Just another wedge between Americans and their ever more senseless, petty, and nonfunctional government, engaged not in solving problems but in making them.
2
I think it best if those who break our laws finally realize we're serious about enforcing them. Given that what they really want is open borders I'm fine with them hating us for not handing it to them. Let them stay home and fix up Latin America.
3
They are not refugees.
2
The United States didn't have such a huge problem with illegal immigration until we passed legislation for Medicaid and Medicare for our CITIZENS.
The social safety nets are over burdened and threatened because we have allowed poorly educated illegal immigrants who have too many kids to flood the social safety nets with their 5-6 child per family, children that Americans are now supporting from birth to adulthood.
End chair migration, enforce eVerify and fix the birth right citizenship loop hold for children of non citizens.
8
"Ironically, if T.P.S. recipients are deported, a primary beneficiary will be one of President Trump’s most-stated enemies: the MS-13 gang, which he has accused of turning United States communities 'into bloodstained killing fields.'"
Really?
Ironic that these critics of Trump would resort to Trump-esque rhetoric and hysteria. How, exactly, would MS-13 be bolstered? Without a sliver of specifics, the authors predict that MS-13 would be "almost certain to take advantage of the impending disruption as deportees arrive in El Salvador." How, exactly, would MS-13 "take advantage?" It's not like a boat will be dumping deportees off tomorrow--they are being two years to get their affairs in order. The authors warn that youngsters left behind in America would be vulnerable to gang recruiters. How paternalistic. Parents don't know what's best for their own kids? Why would a parent leave a youngster who's too young to fend for herself in the U.S. when she's a citizen, by virtue of having been born here, and can travel freely between El Salvador and the U.S.?
Parents are just going to dump kids onto the mean streets of America and hope for the best while they return to El Salvador?
Trump style rhetoric and hyperbole and doomsday scenarios don't sound any better coming from liberals and progressives than from nutball conservatives.
7
Cannot the affected Salvadorans apply for U.S. citizenship? Does the TPS provision expressly prohibit anyone brought here from ever seeking to stay here legally?
Also, are the TPS Salvadorans who've been here for nearly a lawless cancer in our society, rampaging and killing, using and distributing drugs, threatening our peace and well-being? Or are they, like the vast majority of immigrants to the U.S., legal and illegal, hard-working, law-abiding, men and women who, like immigrants for generations, simply hope for a better life?
I ask these questions because I'm trying very hard to believe that the Trump team isn't executing a racial vendetta against people from, as we used to say, south of the border?
TPS does not allow its recipients to apply for citizenship.
1
This decision by the administration is not about TPS. It is not about enforcing the law. It is about feeding the addiction to power. Remember when Trump began - it was only illegal immigrants. Next, it was DACA recipients. Now it's TPS immigrants. Pretty soon he and his administrators (Jeff Sessions and Stephen Miller, for example), private prison operators, Congressional enablers and the enforcement army will run out of immigrants, and then that addiction will demand new fodder. And then they will start with American citizens. Protestors. GLBT people. Black Lives Matters people. Me Too protestors. Whoever. You. Anything to satisfy the craving, the addiction to power. There is no end until and unless we stop them by voting in such overwhelming numbers that the all the gerrymandering and cheating in the world won't matter. Vote, vote, vote.
1
My how we've changed as a nation. We responded to Fidel Castro's Cuba with the wet foot/dry foot policy. Anyone who successfully fled Cuba and made it to dry land were automatically granted a green card.
The Haitians, El Salvadorans, Nicaraguans, DACA recipients, and the diversity programs all have one thing in common and that's the fact that they are all people of color. Trump is racist and so is his base. Unfortunately Congress didn't put permanent protection in place like they did for Cubans so these people are at the mercy of the president.
Our immigration policies are dysfunctional and do need to be updated. Frankly the abuse of the h1b visa program is a bigger threat to American employment opportunities as well as the offshoring of jobs. Instead of doing something to address those issues Trump is randomly evicting vulnerable groups and saying "hey I did something."
2
I find the argument about increased gang violence to be exceptionally strange; there is a blackmailish quality to it: If we send Salvadorans home they will return and kill us. That sounds to me like a rationale for deportation and very restricted immigration from that country in the future. A better rationale would involve, in my opinion, a history of our meddling in Central America.
3
If previous presidents (Republican and Democrat) thought so highly of these folks they should have pressed for legislation to make "TPS" "PPS". "TPS" is an ongoing process available to all immigrants who meet the criteria. It was never, ever designed to be permanent. To ignore the "short-term" intent of "TPS" for these particular individuals is to put America in the situation of always having to grant permanent status every time a similar situation occurs. Temporary means temporary (TPS)! The politicians knew that and these immigrants knew that. They all should have acted accordingly.
5
Change the law. Humanitarianism should not be a temporary thing. The republicans desire to "win" knows no bounds.
1
I am disheartened by all the negative comments here. If you look closely at what deporting these people back would really look like, to me it is a crime against humanity and everything that America is supposed to stand for.
Oh, and it probably gets rid of a lot of people who would potentially vote for the Democrats.
Win win for the Republicans.
To make it easier for TPS recipients to re-build their lives in their own countries, the American foundations which have been spending untold millions of their tax-free money on organizing the undocumented to make demands of the U.S. government, could instead organize the migrants to go home and change their own governments. We could suggest the migrants elect representatives whom our government could delegate to oversee how their governments use the aid we give them. In this and in other ways, they could work as an organized force to end government corruption.
In addition, the American foundations could make mini-loans to the migrants to start their own tiny businesses in their own countries. The now former-migrants would contribute to their own countries by re-building their lives there.
Ending TPS will warn potential migrants not to come to the U.S. illegally. And, it will help Central American countries to create cultures and economies where people will not want to leave for economic opportunity.
4
“ … longer-term United States efforts to build security and prosperity in El Salvador, investing more than $4.4 billion over the past 50 years. “
How have El Salvador and other Central American countries used our aid? How much of it has gone into politicians’ pockets?
Foundations could organize the returning migrants and their countrymen to question the need for needless bureaucratic agencies that serve no purpose other than to allow government workers to demand bribes. Our government could authorize representatives of the returning migrants to oversee and report on how our aid is used. Corruption can be ended and solid attempts made at solving long-term cultural and economic problems.
2
For those that have commented that the TPS program was only meant to be temporary or that immigration in the US is out of control, where is your empathy for your fellow human being? Life is a lottery. For those that were born in the US, you won; for those born in certain parts of Central America, sorry, you are doomed to a life of insecurity, violence, or poverty. I'm sorry, but I refuse to simply shrug and accept that reality.
Immigration is a complex web of realities. US international influence is largely to blame for creating instability in many of the areas where we are seeing refugees. Deportation will not only destroy families and uproot hardworking members of our communities, it will create further instability (including violence and terrorism) that will ultimately undermine what the Trump administration seeks to do. Immigrants, many of which have fled due to violence, are already not being treated fairly by the US system (read the New Yorker article on immigration). Those in power that sow fears of immigration as out of control and full of violent people are appealing to our worst instincts. We should be acknowledging our shared humanity and concern for our children and families and hold elected representatives accountable to implement a humanistic view on immigration.
1
I would think 17 years of observation would qualify as enhanced vetting.
2
What continues to confound me is the double standard applied to immigration lawbreakers and all other lawbreakers. Our jails and prisons are full to overflowing with citizens who have been arrested or are serving time for crimes they were convicted of, everything from shoplifting and smoking a joint of marijuana to forgery, tax evasion and mass murder. Very few compassionate voices are raised in defense of these citizens who have broken a law. Few outside their own families plead that incarcerating a father or mother "breaks up families." Few point to their good work records, their military service, or contributions to the economy or community before they broke the law. To the contrary, most of us demand that they be apprehended and pay a price for their violations. We want the law enforced. If not jail time, then burdensome fines and fees, community service and probation restrictions and a record that limits their future employment opportunities. In effect, we are harder on our citizens than on our non-citizens and undocumented residents and workers. If we are not going to enforce our immigration laws, they open the jails and prisons and let all our non-violent citizens reunite with their families, work for a living, pay taxes and get on with their lives.
5
All your examples compare people who have hurt others with illegal immigrants who have not hurt anyone.
TPS programs were established to help people while their own countries recovered from specific temporary problems. Undocumented Salvadorans were allowed to remain here, without fear of deportation, until their country had recovered from 2 earthquakes. It has long since re-covered. The Salvadorans who are here are saying they should not have to return to their country because it has other problems. Most countries have problems. The U.S. cannot accept and indefinitely maintain poor people from every country that has problems.
The president was elected to send home people who came here illegally. Salvador has long since recovered from the 2 major quakes it experienced 17 years ago. Salvadorans no longer need protected status. We need to re-direct the money we have been using to support them to helping our own citizens find work in the new economy.
In rescinding TPS status, Trump is doing what he was elected to do.
4
I find it ironic that a man whose family has been in the US barely long enough to shake foreign dust from their heels should be so anti-immigration. If there's any refugee we should have kept out, it was his draft-dodging grandfather. I can't think of anything his family has done for America aside from exploit it.
2
I'm always amazed at the nerve that illegal immigrants have to take to the streets, hold signs and shout slogans about what they will and will not except to the host country and its citizens.
It's an interesting approach they take, not one that I feel endears them to the citizenry.
7
Especially when they wave flags of their home nations and hold signs not written in English.
6
And in Spanish.
1
"Ironically, if T.P.S. recipients are deported, a primary beneficiary will be one of President Trump’s most-stated enemies: the MS-13 gang, ..."
US law enforcement can handle gangs. Indeed some gang members have already been sentenced to life in prison.
"It didn’t take long for the resulting instability to bounce back to the United States in the form of increased criminal activity and illegal immigration."
The authors should have suggested ways to improve conditions in El Salvador.
"The Trump administration’s decision to pull the plug only creates more uncertainty and chaos."
Instead of wringing their hands, the authors should have used their OpEd to propose a detailed legislative solution.
2018-01-09 16:09:01 UTC
3
I wish the status of Salvadorans was handled more intelligently and humanely, but I hope people keep in mind that we really can't just keep accepting people forever. No nation can, it's just not possible. If you look at a lot of the old empires throughout history, you'll see that overpopulation and porous borders consistently pop up as reasons for those nations' decays or downfalls. Lots of mouths to feed, but not enough food.
We'll have to turn off the flow of immigrants at some point. By not doing it, we're just delaying a heartbreaking choice even more. We might as well just get it over with now.
9
By reading about the history of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, this was a major problem back then as it is right now.
3
The decision by the Department of Homeland Security does not break families apart, the families can return to their home country together, intact.
Also, it is counterintuitive that this will help the MS-13. Members of this criminal gang should be the first ones deported, their deportation should be priority number 1.
It also is illogical to blame the rise of criminal gangs in El Salvador on deportations from the US! The government of El Salvador should control this gang on their own soil and vigorously prosecute any crimes committed by these gang members. I am sure that the US would be glad to provide support to the El Salvadoran government if requested.
The El Salvadorans (and Haitians) should be an asset to their home countries; the skills and education that they picked up in the US should be transferable back home. If they are an asset to the US, they would be an even greater asset to their home countries - and their skills could be used to help rebuild their home countries.
14
The situation in El Salvador got worse after the working age men were lured to the US and abandoned their families with the prospect of sending home cash. Of course drug dealers and gangs took over when fathers travelled to work in the US.
2
For the past 17 years I have known a wonderful El Salvadoran family who are in California with TPS status. If at any of that time Congress had passed a reform that opened a path to Residency (Green Card) and eventual citizenship, they would have been at the front of the line with their documents. They were earthquake victims, but then became refugees from MS-13 as their home town was overtaken by violence. Looking at the situation from their point of view, the USA and El Salvador share linked problems: MS-13 grew in our prisons, then was exported back to El Salvador. My friends and their adult children (none born here) have worked every day at the hard jobs they could get: gardening, cleaning, etc. They have supported themselves with dignity and honor. One son got to Australia where he and his wife got legal status and he is now a doctor. Since yesterday, what my friend Marguerita called "A very bad Monday," the whole family is afraid and uncertain. She said that they always knew their status was temporary and dreaded a President who would rescind it. They and all of their friends and I agree that returning to El Salvador is out of the question. They are now Americans as much as were my great-grandfather and his brother who arrived here from Ireland and went into the mines. El Salvadorans are being cruelly targeted because of Congress' dysfunction and the Republican base's racism. The only hope is to elect Congresspeople who will fix this broken system.
1
When middle class people moved to the US, the criminals took over in the vacuum that was created. The US has responsibility in that they pandered to the rich cronies who wanted low cost workers. Had the lovely family you know returned home two years after the earthquake, their hometown would not have been overrun by criminals.
It seems odd, however, to blame Americans for returning criminals to the land of their birth.
Unknown to you, had the family wanted to become US citizens once they had been in the US, there was a path open to them, and they knew it. It involved returning home and applying for green cards there, and joining the waiting list. It would have taken a couple of years, as opposed to the ten plus years for Irish or English immigrants. They preferred to benefit from American society and hope for a change in the immigration laws.
2
El Salvador? Come on. Every temporary immigration slot should be given to citizens of those countries we have actively and wantonly destroyed - Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam come to mind. Maybe Iran. El Salvador needs to learn to solve its own problems, and those who knew they only had temporary status should be happy they were allowed to stay way, way longer than originally anticipated. This article makes no sense at all. Why only these Salvadorans anyway? If they are allowed to stay because of bad conditions, shouldn’t every Salvadoran have an asylum case? That’s the logical conclusion of this article’s argument isn’t it?
7
Apparently, El Salvador has about 6.5mn people, and if the conditions there are so horrible, the liberals should be advocating that we bring all 6.5mn Salvadorans to the States so that they can free of gang violence, etc.
The TPS program MUST END forthwith. The emphasis should be on providing succor to people in the affected areas through NGO's and scandal-plagued foundations like Clinton GI. If the government gets involved in bringing in a few even on a clearly temporary basis, it is difficult to have them removed without being called heartless.
We have enough problems here, and gang violence is just as rampant, if not more so, in our own cities (MS-13 anyone?). The easiest way to make these Salvadorans and Haitians go back is to resettle them in South Chicago, and they will self-deport as Romney advocated.
10
Selective law enforcement by perceived political advantage is one of the most vile forms of institutional corruption. Whatever the solution, that must end now.
4
LADY OF THE HARBOR, 2018
Give me your tired, your poor
to use a while and then send back
we take them in for what we lack
then build that wall for… (yak yak yak).
We used to be a friendly shore
not any more
but we’ll learn
to reconsider what they earn
to use them in the land they’re from
or to inspire fear
and shadow labor here,
treat them like convenient scum
and depress their “wages” even more.
And what you may have heard is true:
we’re in the process of deporting you.
7
Actually, it's the presence of so many illegal aliens that causes wage depression. You're looking through the wrong end of the telescope. There is research on this topic. Legal immigrants have little impact on wage depression, but illegals do. The natural solution is to legalize the illegals, but doing so en masse (as Reagan did) rewards lawbreakers and punishes those who have applied or are applying legally. That is fundamentally wrong. For all the rhetoric about the USA being a "nation of immigrants," it is also a nation bound by laws, like any other, just as it should be. The only illegal aliens who should be allowed to stay are those who can prove a case for political asylum.
5
- Illegal immigration can be another tactic in wage suppression, along with union busting, deregulation, and aspects of economic internationalizing.
-At some future time, when negotiation is possible for thoughtful humans as opposed to echo chambers, something decent might be accomplished.
-Abrupt changes in immigration policy should be evaluated in terms of the harm they do to families, in effect, retroactively. as opposed to “from now on.”
-“A country of laws” might enforce its traffic regulations and sharply reduce gratuitous loss of life. Selective enforcement has long been a part of the American experience.
1
During the mass immigration years of the late 1800s and early 1900s, Lady Liberty welcomed legal immigrants to Parris Island, America's legal entry port for documented immigrants. She has never invited undocumented immigrants to violate U.S. immigration laws.
2
This family disruption of thus far protected immigrants, folks now fully integrated in the societal framework of the U.S., is but one example of trump's stupidity...and cruelty gratis.
4
I never cease to be amazed at the number of Americans who truly act as if our nation, alone among the world, should not have any laws or rules as to who may enter and/or remain in the Untied States. And if we, as is the right of any sovereign nation, do have laws, well, they can just be ignored and tweaked by memos and policies and constant games of "this is temporary". Either we have a set of laws and borders or we don't.
We are tearing ourselves apart by this penchant in other areas as well. Look at the recent rancor over marijuana laws. I agree the fed statutes must be up dated, but the chattering class gets everyone angry at an Attorney General who says he will enforce the laws as written on the books. Even members of Congress carp - yet it is THEY, not the president, who are the only ones who can change the laws and they sit on their hands so as not to have to work at it or take a stand. People have foolishly come to believe that a "phone and a pen" approach is all we need, conveniently ignoring one law or another as whim or polls dictate.
You cannot run a country or a judicial system this way. How can any of us have any assurance of our rights if laws are so fungible, to be acted upon or ignored as the winds may dictate. That is not a way to have a free republic, it is a recipe for chaos. And emotion and platitudes like "tearing apart families" is not sufficient cause to become lawless.
23
Your argument is specious and too general. Undoubtedly there are some laws "bent" or ignored but I doubt anyone thinks there should be no laws regarding immigration. This is a different situation - simply enforcing a law that has been poorly constructed from the start. What it will do tho these people and their families is immoral. I would challenge you to go to a "world" like these Salvadorans would return to and then think a little more about your logic. And actually, the law - like civilization - evolves (fungible is an incorrect adjective here), and there should be thoughtful and intelligent debate - not simply the whim of an ignorant administration looking to uphold a nativist agenda.
2
Latin American nations and these think tanks dedicated to them, (that the two authors belong to), would be prudent to start providing free birth control to their citizens. Until this is widely done, expect more dysfunction, chaos and other problems related to overpopulation. The US can not remain the escape valve and only economic engine for these rapidly crowded and deteriorating countries. Giving women a choice could help stabilize population growth and allow for prosperity for more people within these current, desperately poor conditions. Ignoring birth control is a peril to not only these countries but the entire planet. Those Salvadorians who were 'waiting' here in the US doubled their population alone in 10 or so years. This is a problem in the US too.
23
Wrong. The education and empowerment of females has always improved the conditions of anywhere. And this includes giving to women the power to decide how many children they will bear. It has been proven worldwide that lives and societies improve when a women has less children.
3
Yes and Trump's vehemently anti-woman regime has made it immensely more difficult for women -- and men: men have a role in this too, did you forget? -- to obtain birth control. The Trumpers, led by Pence, the man who can't trust himself alone with a woman in a professional setting, are doing everything possible to stop the distribution of birth control in every country we affect, including for women who face the horror of ongoing, repeated, violent rape from men they may or may not know, from employers and government officials and police, or from their own fathers and brothers. It doesn't matter what bestiality these women are subjected to, we will not allow them to have birth control, and when they are impregnated by these criminals, the United States under Trump and Pence makes sure that they cannot have abortions. Trump's ICE recently denied abortions to two teen-age rape victims in their custody. Meanwhile immigrant women are repeatedly subjected to sexual abuse and rape by ICE officers and their surrogates in detention facilities all over this country. http://www.endisolation.org/sexual-assault American men, especially those who work in prisons, apparently love to rape, love to force women to use their bodies to give birth, and then love to forget about the children --- or the destroyed lives of these women. But we of course are morally superior to all these over-actively reproducing immigrants. What hypocrisy you represent. If only men could get pregnant.
I am a legal immigrant in the US, and I decided to return to my native country after 18 years in the US because life has become too expensive in the US (rents and heathcare) and the quality of life declined. I also wanted to be with my extended family.
Life is made of chapters. Returning to one's roots is not the tragedy it is portrayed. It is a good thing! These people can take their savings and knowhow and make Salvador a better place.
The solution to the problems of the world's 180 countries (out of 192) cannot and should not be dumping these populations ad Infinitum into the top 10 countries. So stop encouraging this nonsense!
29
Thank you. We are a nation of immigrants. America benefits from the many people who have been pushed or pulled by forces both within and outside our country to come to America to start new lives. My heritage is Irish and Norwegian; my wife's German and Russian. Both sets of our families arrived in the U.S. in the mid to late 19th century, both driven by different conditions to seek better lives, both families have added value to our country. We all make up America. It is no different now, than it was then.
2
Again with the tiresome "nation of immigrants" line. Sorry, but those relatives coming through Ellis Island and the like were obeying US law and respecting national sovereignty. It is categorically not the same as illegal immigrants disregarding the law.
8
Your ancestors did not demand a free public education including free meals, in their native language,for their children, or food stamps, Medicaid and heating and housing subsidies.
You can have open borders or a welfare state. The combination is unsustainable when there are billions willing and able to sneak into the country.
It is astounding that there are people who have been in the country on temporary status for 17 years and yet are not conversant in English and who obtain government services and talk to reporters through a translator. Within 17 years of arrival, your ancestors were speaking English.
6
Did they come here legally?
human beings by they're nature are forward looking and cohesive.
they're strength as a species is they're ability to cooperate and strive for a better future. Our own political and economic system are built upon these realities. To deny these characteristics is therefore inhuman, a retrograde. When we accept people on a "temperary" basis we are acting illogically and are making a one sided agreement that cannot stand the test of time. People who join us and contribute to our well being should earn the right to stay whatever we thought when they joined us. If they do not live up to our standards they should be subject to return, but if they whole heartedly contribute they should stay if they like. Otherwise we do not live up to our values..
Fine. We are a land that has prospered by being a land where laws are enforced, not modified by the whim of a dictator. When Bush and Obama extended temporary status, they were behaving in an autocratic, non democratic fashion, inconsistent with the values of Americans.
When Senator Obama did not support Bush in his attempt at immigration reform, he thumbed his nose at America. When he declined to use his bully pulpit to change immigration law, both when he had Democrat control of Congress and later, he put his political ambitions ahead of the interests of both Americans and illegal aliens. When he cynically used them as campaign pawns in 2012, he guaranteed that the DACA participants would remain in limbo indefinitely.
In contrast, Trump's decision to enforce the law as written will likely result in legislative action, a return from the third world mindset of his predecessor.
Americans value the rule of law. Leftists who cannot get the law written to their specifications love a dictator. Americans elected a non-dictator to replace a man who was culturally not American and who attributes world problems to American exceptionalism. His solution of progressive values was to diminish American lives to the international norm. Under Trump, Americans will thrive and will raise up poorer countries by example and by spending our enhanced wealth. Everyone will be better off except the wealthy Democrat donors who will lose some of their government largesse.
3
No wonder Trump has lined up a lot of support for his harsh stand on immigration. There have been too many broken promises. Every amnesty is accompanied by our government crossing its heart and assuring us that, in return, it will begin to get serious about enforcing our immigration laws.
This is the same old story. The US magnanimously took in refugees from El Salvador who were displaced by a pair of earthquakes in 2001. That was meant to be a temporary arrangement.
If the public has hardened its heart toward immigrants, it is because it feels that it has repeatedly been betrayed and that our borders our not protected.
Trump's wall may actually be the only way to regain public confidence by providing a tangible symbol of our establishment's commitment to restoring the rule of law.
Mexico isn't going to pay for it. And American taxpayers should not have to do so. So I suggest that the wall should be paid for by the Democratic party.
15
If these people intended to stay here in the US on a permanent basis, they had 17 years to begin the process of becoming citizens. They did not do so, so their intents, it would seem, was to remain Salvadorian, from which one can infer that they intended to return home at some point. That point just became now.
According the the Department of Homeland Security,
TPS is a temporary benefit that does not lead to lawful permanent resident status or give any other immigration status. However, registration for TPS does not prevent you from:
Applying for nonimmigrant status
Filing for adjustment of status based on an immigrant petition
Applying for any other immigration benefit or protection for which you may be eligible
Therefore, they had every right to take action to make their temporary status permanent. If they did not take that opportunity for 17 years, there are consequences.
22
There is no path to apply for citizenship from the temporary status, and thereby nothing these people could have done to make their situation permanent.
This shows you have no knowledge of how the immigration system works. They aren't green card holders and had no path to either permanent residency or citizenship. An application to the State Department for adjustment of status (it would not be to ICE) would most likely be futile, and most ethical lawyers would have refused to try - not to mention if they did, the expense would be in the tens of thousands of dollars. Your argument is a version of Marie Antoinette's: "If they couldn't find bread, then why didn't they eat cake?"
1
A spouse who is amcit, and amcit kids over 21 can petition for them to receive a green card. Skilled workers' employers can petition for a green card. Entrepreneurs can get E nonimmigrant visas and investors can get immigrant visas....Those who did not develop either family or skilled employment ties are put of luck.
Ending TPS is not "President Trump’s latest attempt to restrict both legal and illegal immigration." When did the law become irrelevant in immigration? You cannot simultaneously claim the "system is broken," inferring that the legal system is broken - which by all indications is correct - and then claim that a president, any president, taking an action wholly authorized under those laws is simply "an attempt" to "restrict" (in Trump's case, presumably an attempt to "help those in need" if it were an Obama action) both legal and illegal immigration." TPS beneficiaries are not illegal. Under the law they are afforded a temporary status and protection if they were already present in the United States. Following the law and removing that designation after so many years when the home country conditions no longer exist is simply. . . following the law. Fix the system, sure, but quit ascribing ill motives to attempts to follow the law, whether it is broken or not. THAT is an act driven by political motivations.
22
Temporary means temporary, not permanent.
The US (taxpayers) cannot remotely afford to support all the illegal aliens in this country. Any such illegal aliens should be deported and, as appropriate, allowed to followed the established--and lawful--procedures to seek residency and citizenship.
The US comes nowhere near meeting the needs of its elderly, infirm, poor and disabled citizens, nor those of veterans. Let us make a better and more sincere effort to support our own before we try to meet the needs of individuals who are in this country illegally.
15
The US taxpayers do not support anyone receiving Temporary Protected Status- these people are here legally and PAYING TAXES. This will reduce tax revenue that could be used for programs benefitting the exact groups that you named (vets, elderly, etc.)
1
The Salvadorians being mentioned are not undocumented. They are on a lawful immigration status that has no path to permanent residency and citizenship. There is no lawful path to residency from this status. And they've been here for years.
We're not supporting any of these immigrants because they're not eligible for social support programs. As for meeting the needs of OUR elderly and infirm, that can't happen without migrant laborers willing to change grand-ma's diaper in the middle of the night for minimum wage.
2
These people entered the country illegally. They were given temporary protected status from deportation only after El Salvador suffered 2 earthquakes.
The ones who report their incomes do pay payroll taxes on the amount reported. Virtually no TPS recipients report enough income to pay federal income taxes. It has been possible to get money from the IRS if one files a federal tax return, but does not earn enough to pay income taxes. This has been a modern version of welfare. You can be sure that many TPS residents have been availing themselves of this money.
Whether or not TPS recipients are eligible for state social service programs depends on the particular state where they reside.
3
What we are witnessing is a program that was meant as a temporary sanctuary in the US for the 100,000 El Salvadorians,it turned into an amnesty program. The argument if you end the program you add more Illegal immigrants to the US population is disingenuous and a false equivalence. What is being tested is America's resolve to enforce current immigration laws. It is a false fallacy who advocate that the current immigration procedure is unfair, unattainable and too lengthy. Yet to the millions who came legally and through proper lawful means, the current immigration laws were adhered to and followed. Yet for illegals aliens the following plan is followed: cross illegally, stay illegally, obtain fraudulent documents and assume a different identity, within years amnesty will follow. Liberal America encourages illegal immigration under the guise of morality. States become sanctuary havens and non-compliance of federal immigration laws. TPS was a temporary measure and now it is becoming an amnesty program. For 17 years, America has accommodated these sojourners and in those 17 years very little acculturation has occurred, Many do not speak the language and posses little marketable skills; and yet a sense of entitlement pervades amongst the TPS guests. All are welcome to apply for visa programs and should re-enter as millions before them, legally and through proper channels. Ask those immigrants who arrived legally if they approve of illegal immigration?
19
This decision was based on "conditions at the time that protection was offered," meaning that the Trump administration based their assessment on damage from 2001 earthquakes in El Salvador. While THOSE conditions have improved, the rate of violent crime and gang activity has skyrocketed. These new conditions should have been considered when reviewing this decision. Arguably, these new conditions are even less conducive to these REFUGEES returning to El Salvador than the conditions created by the earthquakes.
I am a public school teacher, and I have students who fled El Salvador because they were going to be forced into gangs. Literally. Gangs approached these teenage boys and said, "join our gang or we will kill your family." These people are refugees from terror.
1
Nonsequitor, they arrived, settled and lived as temporary displaced El Savdoran citizens. The program was not to accept refuugeed from violence but from a natural disaster. Remember how many thousands were sent back during the summer exodus while Obama was president. The program has nothing to do with political asylum. Each then should state their case in immigration court!
2
We have a vast number of unemployed US citizens. Many of them are young Black males. We need to place the lives of US citizens before the lives of foreign nationals who have been 'temporary' guests in this country for an incredibly long time.
Trump is right about this. Our immigration system is broken. The only way it's going to get fixed is the same way we do everything else, painfully.
14
The WALL will keep MS 13 in El Salvador where they belong this time.
3
Illegal entry into the USA is uncontrolled. Temporary status has been made semi-permanent by past presidents kicking the can down the road. It is time to deport all those here illegally and who will become illegal. It is time to shut down all legal immigration. It is time to secure our borders. After insuring national border security we can restart legal immigration. As things are now, Mexico has more control over entry into the USA than the USA has.
14
To read most of the comments here, you would think that America is morally obligated to take in all of the world's poor and oppressed and that we would be a better country if we did. What is immoral is that we have yet to provide a decent standard of living for all of our citizens and their children.
16
We are morally obligated. We always have been. That is why the world has looked to us to moral leadership. This is why dictators once had to conceal their totalitarian impulses, knowing they would not be accepted on the world stage. We used to set the example.
These people are not undocumented. They did the right thing in applying for this status. They are essentially refugees who can work LEGALLY (meaning they pay taxes).
1
This is what you get when one side wants open borders and the other side wants a wall... when one side wants universal health care and the other says we can't afford to provide it to everyone on the planet... when the children of poor immigrants have Medicaid (a really good deal) and America's working poor can't even afford Obamacare. Democrats say no compromise and the Republicans reply ditto. We end up with government by dueling executive orders, which is a very bad thing ... except for the people who think they deserve sainthood for issuing them. Meanwhile we sink further into debt and who comes to power when the bank finally busts may spell the end of the American democracy as we have known it ... some who think Venezuela is a workers paradise may welcome that. The alternative is just as gruesome.
10
The immigration system is not broken because we don't invite the whole world here.
7
El Salvador is not our problem. Period.
17 years. It's time for these visitors to go home.
19
Are you serious? Are you really serious? Go “home” to what? These T.P.S recipients are us. Walk a mile in their shoes. How/what would YOU do if you had to return to the home of your immigrant ancestors?
The immigration system is BROKEN but don’t punish the people who are caught up in the web of government inaction. Punish the government instead and demand they find solutions for the future.
1
"El Salvador is not our problem."
Salvadoran gangs in the US are OUR problem.
1
I’m against this deportation action. But make no mistake: this mess was caused by the Obama administration’s unwillingness to change a law it didn’t want to enforce.
10
"... this mess was caused by the Obama administration’s unwillingness to change a law it didn’t want to enforce."
More simplistic blame assignment. Congress writes the laws. You should suggest ways to change the law.
Congress may write the laws, but it has been lazy and allowed the Executive Branch to ignore bits and pieces of it as it chose, leaving us with the chaotic mess. That's not the way its supposed to happen.
3
While many argue for maintaining this temporary protective service for the visitors admitted from El Salvador a couple of decades ago, Washington Post is putting out article after article about the violence perpetrated by MS13 gangs in Northern Virginia and Maryland.
It will be horrendous if Trump is reelected because Democrats are too loose with immigration.
8
A summary of what follows:
1. It's mean so we shouldn't do it.
2. There needs to be immigration legislation that clearly states what is immigration and what is visiting.
3. Trump is horrible.
4. Trump is awesome.
5. The children.
8
These folks stayed back for 19 years, because an earthquake killed a 1000 people.
Floods, Famine, earthquakes are common in many countries. If folks from 175 countries use that to plead residency in USA, it is a burden.
They now have a chance to go back to their birth country and help in nation building.
The skills they learned here, plus work ethics, will help them gain meaningful employment, be mentors, leaders etc.
16
You obviously have NEVER lived in a country outside the United
States, I have and do. It is not the rosy picture you paint. Do you relaize how much United States intervention in the politics and economies of Mexico and Latin America has cost those countries? It is all coming back to bite us.
This is inhumane.
They'll have to hide out and wait for Oprah, unfortunately.
"Temporary" is fewer than sixteen years. Time to say goodbye.
22
Interesting how the "front-page" title is "an unjust ..." while the article is "A Counterproductive...".
As a liberal Democrat, I can agree with the suggestion that this may be counterproductive, for many of the reasons listed in the article. I can't agree that it is unjust. The immigrant argument seems to be we like it better in the US, therefore it would be unjust to insist that we go back to El Salvador. Problem is, there are lots of people in the world who would rather live in the US...and allowing the immigrants to decide which ones get to move to the US seems, well, stupid. That should be a choice that we make consciously, and will full understanding of the consequences of those choices; not based on the random thoughts of whoever is in power.
So continuing "temporary" status after 17 years as if it were permanent? No way. Make an argument about how we should have open borders; I am sure it will be defeated by the American voters. Trying to create the same result by stealth--well, that's why people vote for Trump.
32
Was it not made clear to these Salvadorans when they first came here 17 years ago that they were being provided "temporary" relief and had to go back to their own country once the emergency was over? It's "unjust" for us to send them back now when that is what TPS was all about to begin with? These folks are citizens if a foreign country and have already been given ample time to make arrangement to go back. The fact that they haven't done so already simply shows they never intended to, but were simply exploiting our good nature and taking advantage of us. It's clear to me that TPS is a failed program. Let future refugees from disasters stay in their own countries from now on, and we'll help them there instead of this nonsense. Europe needs to do the same with their refugee situation. Stop all if it, now! And anyone can see from this Salvadoran situation that these "refugees" don't intend to go back, and our kindness is being rewarded with protests, by these foreign citizens on our soil, and screams of "racism" and "injustice" when all we are doing is what we promised to do. Enough already! End TPS!
24
The Trump administration hasn’t made any changes to U.S. immigration policy. The Temporary Status Program isn’t “supposedly temporary” as the article asserts; Congress designed it to offer temporary sanctuary to victims of war or natural disasters. As its name indicates, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals was also designed as a temporary program. “Deferred” means postponed or delayed. When President Obama announced the DACA program, he described it as “temporary stopgap measure.”
19
How long is "temporary"? If the definition is up to the executive, then there is nothing more to say.
9
Our immigration system is badly broken and no one in Congress has the political will to fix it. We can't institute universal healthcare until we fix immigration. I disagree with Trump on most issues, but on immigration he at the very least has the political will to attempt to fix it. We cannot open our borders to anyone and everyone. Does any other country do this? No! Canada most certainly does not. We need a defined criteria that everyone must meet. We need to be fair to those who have played by the rules. Our planet is bursting at the seams. We don't need to add another 10 million people here on a whim. We need to be sensible.
22
Anita: THANK YOU FOR SAYING THAT.
If we want a $15 minimum wage -- or even a rise in the current, 10 year old pathetic $7.25 an hour -- if we want universal health care as other advanced nations have -- WE CANNOT DO THIS WITH MILLIONS OF ILLEGALS.
We have at least 25 million illegals and probably 1/4th of those in California alone -- most are uncounted -- most will NOT participate in the Census -- (duh!) -- and until they leave, no rise in wages or health care will ever occur.
3
There are too many contradictions here. Basically it seems El Salvador is deprived of some of its smartest, hardest working citizens so the US can have have cheap labor. And if these Salvadorians are their 'best & brightest' why would they join MS-13 upon their return? Instead might they not work to build that country, proving an educated, entrepreneurial citizen base? Those that choose could them apply to legally return to the US. The rest could lead El Salvador into the future!
19
I agree Donna. I love how Mr Shifter gives us a doomsday scenario about the deported coming back as the equivalent of the Walking Dead in MS-13 recruits. Not all of these refugees abide by the MS 13 credo of "Rape kill and control". You need a certain pre disposition for this type of behavior. Maybe they'll do just fine. What a thought!
1
I feel very sorry for these poor people. If I had the power, I'd let them stay.
But I am also suffering from immigrant fatigue. I am truthfully weary of one rule or law after another that was ignored, that led to people here beyond whatever time was allotted. And that suddenly produces one crisis or another demanding our attention.
And I am weary of the intractibility of the arguments. Ship them all out vs Let them all stay.
Until people believe our laws mean something, we will face one problem after another. But how do you make peopke believe our laws mean something without absurdly harsh actions?
19
This commentary brings us back to where we were a few administrations ago, seeking to do the right thing but never acting on it. President Trump is doing something. If it's not the right thing then let a bi-partisan Congress legislate what is the right thing to do.
12
TPS was approved by Bush for just 18 months in 2001. Here we are 18 yrs later and ending it is controversial. So lesson learned that all TPS programs are permanent refugee programs.
Being compassionate and being organized are not contradictory. The immigration through 1000 doors has to be streamlined or we just have laws on paper. If you look at TPS, DACA, H4B work authorization, H1B expansion, L1/B1 visa abuse, Immigration lottery, Chain migration, Illegal immigration, Refugees, Abandoned minors at the borders, Visa overstayers, Medical exceptions no one has a holistic view into the impact on US Citizens.
Let us develop a system that is simple and one that is enforceable. Whether one is a D or a R, it benefits everyone. Right now immigration lawyers, special interest groups are raking in $s exploiting the process.
As a country of immigrants, we can be welcoming to immigrants but let us be organized and systematic about it. I support increasing legal immigration including refugee programs if that is what is needed but we should not have a series of one-off regulations that essentially make a mockery of law abiding legal immigrants and citizens belief in what it means to be an American citizen and continue to encourage law breaking.
17
Previous Presidents have renewed TPS without considering whether it was really necessary. Obama and Bush have allowed TPS to become a backdoor for permanent residency in the US.
TPS was always intended to be Temporary. It was not meant to go on for 17 years. Temporary means temporary we must ensure that these programs are ended and their abuse stopped.
TPS should be removed from the laws books and ended. It is subject to too much abuse by the recipients and its temporary nature is overlooked. I am glad to see that Trump is putting the Temporary part back in the law and ending the TPS status of Central Americans.
My question is if they wanted safety there are other countries close then the US . It sounds to me that they used it more as a scam to get into the US and stay.
17
Exactly -- it was a clever "back door" to let in what would have otherwise been 200,000 illegal aliens!
The left leaves no rock unturned in their quest to get as many hispanic/latinos into the US as immigrants -- legal or illegal -- as possible, to 'tip the vote" and create a huge demographic to give THEMSELVES immense political power!
2
Totally agree with the policy. We must control our borders and that includes those who overstay. The TPS recipients should have made plans to go back a long time ago instead of waiting to be kicked out. Temporary, remember?
And what of diversity? Do we want most of our immigrants from one part of the world? I think not. Let's control the borders and then open it up worldwide in a legal fashion.
14
The authors complain that “Temporary protection is an essential tool to respond to short-term crises and disasters, but in this case — as in Haiti and Honduras — T.P.S. has not been sufficiently adaptive toward longer-term state weakness.” They argue U.S. immigration policy should be designed to benefit not the United States but other countries that suffer high rates of poverty and unemployment. But America can’t solve the problem of global poverty and unemployment through immigration. Nearly half of the world’s population — more than three billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day. More than 1.3 billion live in extreme poverty — less than $1.25 a day. And the number of people living in poverty increases annually. If we doubled, tripled or quadrupled our legal immigration quotas and overlooked illegal immigration, we wouldn’t make a dent in global poverty. We would succeed only in impoverishing America. An enlightened foreign policy is the way to help reduce world poverty.
11
Open border advocates regard the term “anchor baby” as a pejorative, but they are quick to argue it would be inhumane to deport illegal immigrants whose children are U.S. citizens by virtue of having been born on U.S. soil. The authors point out that Salvadorans whose Temporary Protective Status is expiring are “parents to approximately 192,700 United States-born citizens.” We should strike a bargain. Grant legal residence status to illegal immigrants whose children are U.S. citizens in exchange for changes to U.S. citizenship policy that, in the future, would grant birthright citizenship only to children born to U.S. parents. Some contend this could be done simply by a congressional declaration defining the full meaning of the term “subject to the jurisdiction of” phrase in the citizenship clause, but it might require a constitutional amendment. This change from “jus soli” (right of soil) citizenship to “jus sanguinis” (right of blood) citizenship would align U.S. citizenship policy with Europe and most of the world’s developed countries.
16
Mr. Case: lefty libs and Democrats will NEVER make that trade off -- birthright citizenship is THE most powerful tool in their toolbox and that tool is being used to change the US into a hispanic-majority nation, which will always vote for only one political party -- delivering to liberal Dems a vast power, with which they will force social engineering down our throats.
4
It would be cruel to force these people to leave the U.S. The same is true for the DACA and Haitian peoples. Why punish these people for the failure of Congress to address immigration properly?
Besides, our population is aging and we need younger workers to keep Social Security viable.
2
Most refugees living in the United States under TPS are hardworking, productive people with homes, jobs and American-born children, many now in their teens. Maybe the T should have been taken out of the PS long ago -- another of many Congressional oversights -- when Republican lawmakers were still independent, responsible and compassionate of their fellow man. That may be too much to expect from Trumpist toadies. But they shoud ask themselves: if the justification for such a move is saving American jobs for "real (white) Americans," whose jobs have these refugees stolen? Unemployment is at an all-time low, the economy is booming and, after 18 years of integrating into our communities, these refugees are as American as the rest of us.
2
Actually, Christy, the American CITIZENS who suffer the most for competition for these same jobs -- often low skill blue collar work -- are not WHITES but lower income black Americans and even hispanic-American citizens.
But I guess it is OK to you that 40% of black youth in America are unemployed -- so long as some illegal alien has a job for $4 an hour cash under the table?
4
TEMPORARY protected status means just that: it is not permanent. These people when they return to their countries to reapp the TPS status knew that.
To avoid such divisive decisions in the future, let us put an end to TPS. Problem solved.
15
The Pittsburgh area needs more people. Deport them here! We welcome immigrants in the true American spirit. We are already great!
15
Deporting the Salvadorans as well as the Dreamers will NOT restore lost jobs to coal miners or manufacturing workers.
Trump has no solution for this problem of lost jobs.
The proposed deportations are just throwing red meat to Trump's base to deflect attention from the fact that Trump has not improved the economic status of his base.
A booming stock market and low unemployment rate which is unaccompanied by an increase in wages does not help his base.
But making immigrants scapegoats is all Trump can do.
21
I strongly disagree. It is axiomatic that bringing in more low-skill workers will worsen the situation of the most vulnerable workers. In the largest study ever done of the fiscal impact of immigration -- the 15-year longitudinal study by the National Academy of Science -- it finds that 44% of the DECREASE in wages for American workers at the bottom is a product of massive low-skill immigration. Whether this is or is not "meat" to Trump's base, facts are facts. The continuation of massive importation of poverty will also have a dramatic impact on our already thread-bare social safety net. No less a figure of authority on the left than Paul Krugman has argued that this immigration -- if not discontinued -- will totally destroy the social safety net, including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. It's true that wages have remained stagnant, a huge problem. But to blame Trump is a bit over the top. Employers will pay as much or as little as it takes to get workers to take jobs, and the net effect of massive immigration by workers who will work for essentially anything is what keeps wages low. Among the people who made this argument are such historical reactionaries are Caesar Chavez, Barbara Jordan and Samuel Gompers.
19
Funny, none of this is borne out by the actual NAS paper., which states that impact on employment and wages of US citizens is very small. The children of immigrants contribute to the economy far more than their parents take.
http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=23550
1
Separate the question of unlimited future immigration from the question of the Salvadorans and the Dreamers who are currently here..
Will deportation of both of these change the economics of natural gas over coal and restore coal mining jobs.
Will the deportation change the loss of coal mining jobs because of automation in mining.
Will deportation change the wage differential between US workers and workers outside of US.
Are undocumented workers eligible to collect Social Security and Medicare benefits.
If you want to raise wages , raise the minimum wage to $15 and enforce laws against underpaying.
Undocumented workers can be underpaid because employers exploit their fear of being deported if they complain. Giving those already here work permits would mean they and therefore US workers could not be exploited.
I repeat. Trump has no program to help the low income segment of his base.
[Neither did HRC which was why she lost.]
But Trump is just pandering to his base by deporting
Daca and Salvadorans.
He is not that stupid [cynical and cruel but not stupid].
He knows this proposed deportation will have no economic effect but Trump is scared of what Mueller is uncovering and he needs support of his base to fight impeachment.
The Saladorans and Dreamers are just pawns in his fight against impeachment.
1
Laws in democracies are never entered to rent the social order. Law is never to be a lever for bad public policy, even it the face of fervent disagreement. With unemployment near four percent, what purpose or point is served by disrupting communities, businesses, workplaces and a contributing cycle of production and purchase by deporting persons--for the cause of law.
Law will not make America great. Especially when it acts as dark cover for hate, a bias so deep it appeals to law as it only resort, when all other factors of the economic and social order say and evidence the nation is better served if these families are left in place.
The veils of justice are being put on the eyes of the people, if we as a nation can not come to a profound truth about our laws being an excuse to perpetuate the ghosts of privilege and hate, to countenance a shrug and indifference to fate and the many pieces of prosperity that rest on the immigrant experience, whether documented or undocumented. Taxes paid, work done, strong ethics among their contributions.
Too much of America only looks in a myopic mirror.
6
Unemployment may be 4% but wages still haven't increased much which means employers are not having any problem finding workers in spite of what they may be saying and in fact there is still a surplus of labor it's just wages are so low it's not really incentivizing people to re-enter the labor market.
3
Congress certainly needs to address the status of people living in the US under TPS. While many on the Liberal Left have no problem with an indefinite "temporary" program that kicks the can down the road into perpetuity, the fact of the matter is that TPS was intended to be a short-term humanitarian accommodation for people from a crisis-stricken nation. It was never intended to be a quasi-permanent way for illegal immigrants (who were most of the original TPS beneficiaries) to sidestep normal immigration procedures - which is what it has become.
40
Immigration clearly is an issue of great importance to the President as he campaigned strongly on it.
I think he should address the nation on this issue (he won't need notes or a teleprompter) and then take questions from the press, economists and immigrant protection groups.
Those who presently are doubters would then no longer doubt the President's genius.
Think about it. This could be a defining moment in this nation's history.
3
He could do that, but I don't know that any of us could handle that level of "like, really smart" for very long - or the blatant racism.
If it defined anything, it would define the level of insanity we descended to as a nation, that he ended up being the one in charge.
It would seem that this temporary protected status was a bad idea from the beginning. Congress seems to excel at turning bad ideas into bad policy when it comes to immigration. I suppose some of them once thought Americans were a kind and generous people who would be happy to lend a hand to those in need. Whatever gave them that idea?
15
All the arguments for enhanced deportations, clamping down on even legal immigration, etc, seem to revolve around the threat to employment of US citizens. Yet our economy is booming, unemployment is as low as we can expect it to go, wages are creeping up..we actually NEED these workers. Who will replace them in our growing economy? These people are working, or business owners (employers), paying taxes. We are not "taking care of them", as one commentor suggests, except in the sense of providing a reasonably safe and stable environment for their talents and efforts to flourish and contribute to our society
38
Unemployment only reflects the numbers of people who were laid off recently and get benefits. USA has 95 million people out of the labor force out of 325,000 million, almost one in three people is unemployed or underemployed or trapped in the sporadic gig economy.
9
the argument is that we need to enforce our laws!
1
Congress should pass a law.
The law should allow these "temporary" people permanent legal residency IF:
a. They have NOT been convicted of a felony or misdemeanor involving drugs or violence.
b. Are fluent in English and can pass the same test required of candidate naturalized citizens.
c. Have a Social Security number and have paid Social Security and Medicare taxes a minimum of 5 of the 17 years they have been in the country.
They should then be allowed to apply for citizenship a minimum of 5 years after attaining legal resident status.
11
The issue is "temporary" people. How do we define as a finite group and not repeat the same underlying issues that caused it in the first place. As we are speaking there are more folks coming in over the border or overstaying illegally with the expectation to be the beneficiary of the next round of such legislation.
3
OK, but would you agree that this law should be opened up to legal immigrants who are subject to extensive backlogs - Indian and Chinese natives who have been "playing by the rules" - or would you put them in the category of people taking "good American jobs" like Senator Durbin who cries for DACA and TPS, but pushes back against H-1B nonimmigrants?
1
Most Central Americans who live in the so-called “dry corridor” that runs through 38% of Guatemala, 58% of El Salvador, and 21% of Honduras are small-scale farmers with large families. They frequently suffer through long droughts. A 2017 U.N. report found a correlation between drought conditions and the number of people leaving for the U.S. When Central Americans couldn’t raise enough to eat during times of severe drought, more of them migrated to the U.S.
Violence was rarely mentioned as a reason to leave. The migrants said they were looking for a steady diet for themselves, and to be able to send money back home to their families.
The U.S. could temporarily help provide food to Central Americans in their own countries rather than allowing them to continue living here. At the same time, aid agencies could help them learn how to catch and store more rainwater, how to irrigate more efficiently, and how to plant less water-intensive crops. The agencies could urge them to use family planning so that they would not have so many mouths to feed. This would leave them with enough food to store for lean times. The improved farming methods might help them raise enough food that they would have extra to sell at markets for money they could use to prepare for future droughts.
Central Americans can be helped in their own countries.
17
"Central Americans can be helped in their own countries."
They can be, we could be better neighbors, but Republicans don't want to do that either.
Republicans and Fox even shout down all attempts to stop the gun-running that funds gangs that drive good hard-working people who want to protect their children to the United States.
5
Oh, but our government policies forbid family planning. In fact, most of our government policies, as evidenced by these comments here, are really not thought through, cohesive policies. They are little bits of colored tape put here and there to hold things together at the moment. Now we look from afar (17 years) and see that our tape bits (give temporary status, send food, build a military base, send USAID, send some NGO’s , etc.) have created a hodgepodge, nonsensical mess, not just in El Salvador, not just in Central America, but all that ver the world. Our intervention, however well-intentioned has never been systematically thought through since the Marshall Plan. This is why, despite our large output of American dollars (large numerically but not per capita where many other countries outpace us dramatically) , we are not particularly well thought of. And, all those little bits of tape, often have strings attached. If ever, and when our Congress gets back to actually working collegiality fir the good of the country instead of their own parties and pockets (yes, you Mr. Corker of real estate special lawmaking exceptions), they should start thinking about comprehensive policies instead of stopgap measures. I am not holding my breath, though.
1
I can't understand liberal defense of ending a temporary program related to an earthquake, do they think every body in the world trying to get away from any situation is entitled to stay here indefinitely, and, bring their extended family too no doubt. Birth rates in countries like El Salvador result in exploding populations - about 4.5 million in 1980, about 7 million now, projected to 12 million by midcentury, we cannot take these all in, they have to live with sustainable growth rates.
US citizens have a right to control our borders just as other countries generally do, and determine who is allowed to stay. We have a reason to do so as our population soars and the countryside gets more crowded leaving less room for nature and for agriculture, our working people have wages stagnate due in part to the endless supply of cheap and often illegal labor. I can understand sympathizing with individuals who want to stay illegally, but don't liberals care any more about our environment and living standards of working Americans?
44
I don't understand why the headline is entitled "unjust approach". What's the injustice here? Allowing them to enter the U.S. in the first place under a Temporary status? Allowing them to stay years after the conditions that allowed them such entry no longer existed? Would it have been better to never have had this program in the first place if it leads to injustice?
36
"To be sure, as President Trump has noted, responsibility for the problems with the current situation lies with the T.P.S. program itself." and with his two predecessors.
13
Temporary migrants who never leave are by definition not temporary. This is just another example of how broken our immigration system is. Now trying to return these people to their country a decade or more after the crisis that brought them is seen by the left as a crime against humanity. If these programs ever end and are nothing more than backdoor immigration programs they need to be ended or changed. The action by the Trump administration should force the discussion which is long overdo. Also the fact that temporary residents now have children who are US citizens complicates even more.
23
What is unfair about ending a "temporary" program after 18 years?
When do legal residents who are in construction, security work, hotel work, restaurant work, and janitorial work get to see a pay raise, instead of having their wages artificially depressed by immigrant labor?
40
Obama and the Democrats deliberately exploited what was supposed to be a temporary relief program to try to build a Democratic majority. Then they lost an election and the game is up. Oh well. Elections have consequences.
24
The US, Canada, Europe and Australia should not necessarily be the end goal of people from foreign countries. What is wrong with staying put and or fighting to make your country better? Or returning after things are better?
There are wars and other horrible things happening all over the planet in many different places. Are we obligated to accept all of the disaffected with the possible outcome of eventually destroying ourselves or our own nation?
Guess what, there are limitations. And it is 2018 not 1918. There are now too many people, here (3rd most populous nation) and everywhere (7.6 Billion). How many more can we reasonably accept into the US? A billion or 2 or more? When is enough enough?
29
I find it very funny when Americans say people should stay in their own poor countries. Are you Native American? If not, why did your ancestors get to come to America? Which country did they return to when things got better? Which visa did your grand parents qualify for to move to the United States (mine came on a medical student visa, FWIW)?
Also, the US is not overcrowded. We may be the 3 rd most populous nation, but 179th most densely population country. People are coming to us because their countries are far more crowded than ours is.
2
We need comprehensive immigration reform. We need it now. Merit based immigration, an end to chain migration, etc., must all be on the table.
Until this occurs, we should have a moratorium on deporting those here illegally, except for very recent arrivals and those with serious criminal convictions.
The progressives will have to accept restrictions on future immigration; the conservatives will have to accept that many of those here illegally must remain. And both sides must agree that future illegal arrivals must be returned.
7
Temporary amnesty will only lead to more problems. No one here illegally should EVER assume they are free from deportation. That's how you get more people we neither need or want.
7
There is a question nobody seems to discuss: if we allow folks to come here for refuge during a national disaster, like an earthquake or hurricane that devastates their homeland, and then let them stay on and on, mainly because they are doing fine, are gainfully employed, are starting businesses and creating jobs, are performing hard-to-staff service jobs, are paying their taxes, are raising their kids who may be American citizens, and basically are acting like model citizens - who is to blame?
By letting them stay for nearly two decades have we not been complicit in the widening chasm between America and their homeland? Have we not knowingly encouraged their budding American Dream? Have we not allowed ourselves the benefit of their efforts in such shortage areas as home health care aides for our aging parents? Have we not enjoyed, on behalf of our children, the vibrancy, talents and diversity they bring into our schools, our kids' sports leagues, our neighborhoods?
To even pretend that Salvadorans have a recovered and functioning homeland to return to is cruel pretense. To pretend that we have their country's best interests at heart (sending back all these nice, stable hardworking people will turn the tide in the murder capital of the word) is rank hypocrisy.
In talking about the law-abiding people affected by this new ruling, remember two things:
We let them stay because it was mutually beneficial.
Nearly 200,000 American citizens need their parents.
17
Conflating refugees who have a legal right (by UN statute) to entry the United States and become permanent residents with TPS recipients and other economic migrants as all being deserving of permanent residence damages the rights of those refugees who are literally fearing for their lives. As we see in Europe, legitimate refugees are becoming unwelcome as hundreds of thousand of economic migrants demand residency in Europe and the liberal left (of which I am one) conflates their rights as similar to refugees. I speak as an immigrant to the US who spent 10 years filling out the forms and paying the lawyers and the fees before being granted legal access. What message are we sending to lawful applicants who do the right thing when anyone who jumps a border or overstays a visa can claim residency on moral grounds.
56
I hear your frustration, but suggest it should be directed at our irrational and cowardly immigration system rather than other immigrants. The distinction between refugees and "economic migrants" is difficult to make for the Northern Triangle countries (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras), from which people flee both grinding poverty and severe state and gang violence. Plus, it has traditionally been almost impossible for people from these countries to obtain refugee status in the U.S.--in the 1980s, our government did not want to acknowledge the role it had played in stoking wars and genocide in these countries.
It is as with most of these things a return to the rule of law, this is a program that needs to be eliminated and it is to be temporary, not forever. If some what a special benefit for them congress is the place for that to happen, make the case that they should stay there.
7
You tell us few will leave, but that this will break up families. You tell us that young American citizens with little or no ties to El Salvador are likely to become Salvadoran gangsters. You tell us that, while nobody will leave or quit their jobs, they'll stop sending remittances to El Salvador and that everything in El Salvador will get worse even though nothing is changing there. You tell us that the present law doesn't work well. You don't tell us why revoking it and having everyone stay anyhow is a worse option, other than the fact that Trump might be making some people nervous jst like all the rest of us. And it isn't clear to me how the new law will cause chaos. Finally, you tell us that this change will erode our status in Latin America where everybody hates us anyway.
The fact of the matter is this is a change that changes next to nothing. There are millions who have lived most of their lives illegally in the US. I will not even know that there are 200,000 more who have been here legally for a dozen years. Trump is sending a message to his followers and that's it. I'm not one of his followers so I will have something in common with the El Salvadorans -- none of us will pay any attention to Trump.
7
Yet another morally reprehensible decision by a heartless administration eager to punish those who are now, suddenly after 17 years of renewed TPS, deemed to have "overstayed" their initial welcome. Time to jettison all ethnic groups that don't fit this administration's mold instead of drafting new laws that humanely allow these immigrants to seek citizenship. This may be "America First," but it has not been and is not the American way. It is time to turn off the lamp beside Trump's golden door until this scourge upon the
nation's traditional values passes.
20
The only thing broken about our immigration system is the lack of will by previous administrations to enforce our immigration laws and protect our country from illegal immigration.
It seems President Trump is rectifying those mistakes.
26
Trump wants a wall and more border security.
While the Democrats apparently want to give law breakers “sanctuary,” want to let Haitians, Salvadorans, and Nicaraguans who came on a “temporary” basis to stay permanently, they want the Dreamers to be able to chain-migrate their parents in, they want to shelve and separate the issue of border security from immigration reform, and they’re opposed to vetting or restricting the entry into this county of potentially violent jihadists from failed states that are either open enemies of ours, or so failed that they can’t even vet the people who come to us.
I’m no political expert, but based on what Trump is asking for, and what the Democrats are asking for, I’m pretty sure Trump is going to come out ahead on this, like he did in 2016.
America First is a pretty simple concept. Democrats scoff at it to their peril.
21
As some commenters have stated, this is an ill-informed policy that much of the civilized world will view as cruel and inhumane. I concur.
4
But it is the law, which needs to be enforced by the administration who all pledge to do so. Who cares what the world might thing, if you don't like it get the law changed. I want this program eliminated, help people in their home countries only.
11
I take your point, but we are all immigrants to North America, South America, and to to every continent where people live. Do any of us have more rights than another? We all have the same needs and rights: basic human rights, which includes the need for food, shelter and safety.
Helping people in their home countries only is problematic, because people seeking to come here often flee violence, poverty or lack of opportunity.
Let's not forget the inscription at the base of The Statue of Liberty:
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
https://www.nps.gov/stli/learn/historyculture/colossus.htm
Genetic evidence supports the theory that all humans came from Africa, long ago -- and from there, early homo sapiens migrated over time to Australia, India, Asia, upward from Asia into what is now Siberia and Russia -- then over the Bering land bridge, and then, down into North America and all across North America and then south into what is now Mexico and South America.
We are all immigrants. All of us. Except the original humans who came out of Africa.
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/02/080221-human-genetics.html
Before Ellis Island, people to the U.S. simply came... All my ancestors came before Ellis Island, but approximately 40 percent of Americans can trace their ancestry back to Ellis Island.
2
It's obvious that compassion and common decency had nothing to do with this decision.
3
There is a clear mainstream American view (yes, it’s quite mainstream) that our immigration system isn’t broken, that it’s a determined and successful effort so far by cultural relativists to dilute our culture because, like all cultures it has no real value, and that osmotic movements of hordes of human beings across frontiers escaping near-failed societies and seeking improved economic opportunities and a more stable society which they can change, over time with their votes into something more familiar to their own near-failed societies, is perfectly valid. Whether that osmotic movement is legal or not.
Trump was substantially elected by those who hold that mainstream American view and who reject the cultural relativists. Yet, this op-ed proceeds from a refusal to accept that view as legitimate and from the premise that the cultural relativists have it right.
So long as elites continue to refuse to accept that mainstream view as legitimate and engage it seeking to moderate it, there’s simply not a lot to talk about on the issue. Trump, his advisors and Congress will continue to roll back illegal immigration and seek to impose a time-out on ALL immigration, until the culture has better assimilated those who have come in immense numbers already, until we figure out what to do with the millions here illegally, and until we better learn how to protect culture in the teeth of diluting effects.
And those opposed will continue to scream bloody murder, without a lot of impact.
64
As a Republican, I support ending the DACA debacle by immediately declaring these kids who have never known a culture other than ours American citizens. And that includes Salvadorans in the same fix. But adults who came here illegally AS adults? Expect to see them deported, in even greater frequency. Wall or no wall, there is NO way to fix this problem of illegal entry and residency that does NOT include pain for adults who are here without a right to be here.
Elections have consequences and, for the present, those who hold that mainstream American view are in the driver’s seat, not the cultural relativists.
30
I am happy to have them as residents, not as citizens unless through the normal process. And I insist that changes in immigration be more comprehensive than just the dreamers and they have nothing to do with budgets or keeping the government open. If Dems want to push, let them take the results.
5
When I am a guest at someone's home, I don't expect to stay permanently. I say thank you and take my leave, hopefully before I am thrown out.
Also, I say thank you.
Furthermore, I don't think my hosts expect me to bring in my kids so they can be fed, schooled at their expense.
So, please, just say thanks and I am leaving graciously.
15
Young American citizens to be left behind cannot be older than 13. Do we really think that we want as residents adults who wound abandon their children? How many of those adults paid human traffickers to transport their children, unaccompanied, to the US after Obama declared DACA?
If 200,000 middle class Salvadorans return home, most of them working age men, won't that be a force to bring the gang activity under control?
American policy of luring third world countries' working age men to the US has been manifestly destructive to the countries subject to the brain/brawn drain. All so that Americans can have cheap household help.
Family reunification should take place at home. American born children are welcome to return as adults.
27
ebmem, 2001 to 2018 (or even 2017 - I don't know what time of year the earthquakes occurred is more than 13 years. "...be temporary relief after a pair of earthquakes in 2001..."
You're assuming that middle class status in the US can be ported to El Salvador simply by sending them back. History shows us that our country destabilized El Salvador in our misbegotten zeal to control Central America, and the MI13 gang grew out of a previous deportation.
Nothing has changed in the living conditions or economic conditions there to preclude the same happening again.
American children have the right to be raised in the United States, and if the US government wants to deport them, it should be obligated to provide those children with an education to the standard of what is readily available in the United States. Deporting american citizen children only means that you end with adults who will return to the US barely literate, and unskilled in anything. What do you do then? Leave them on welfare forever more?
In the North Bronx there is a large undocumented population from Europe will they also be given their marching orders? I doubt it. Does Trump realize his base is not growing and the opposition is? Groups that never really had anything in common now have a common cause Trump. Does anybody on the right really think Old White Men is a growing Demographic?
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When their turn comes of course, first gang members and other criminals.
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What I find interesting Mr. McCain is that so many desire and want to move to the nations that these Old White Men have designed and made. The top 10 countries on this planet speak for themselves. The UK, Australia, Canada, US, Germany, Switzerland and all of Scandinavia. All mostly based on White Christian Protestant ethics. Must have done some things right.
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That “Old White Man” had a lot of kids - who think like him - that’s the growing demographic
First they came for the Salvadorans. And I said nothing.
This isn't "immigration policy" -- it's ethnic cleansing.
Who will be next? Because the forced removal of the Salvadorans won't be the only instance this country will see under Trump. Next will be the DACA young people and children. After that? You can be sure that it will be another group of brown-skinned people living in this country -- and by then, their citizenship won't save them.
How many times must this happen to others, before the rest of us finally speak out? If history is any guide, we already have the answer --- when we will no longer be able to protest, for fear of our own safety.
We will look back on this time in shame, as the fleeting year or two when our protests - had we made them - might have made a difference. Because this time will come. And then we may no longer judge others, in other nations, who sat silently by when their own dictators began systematically removing "undesirables". It has started right here, right now. And there is precious little time left to stop it.
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This is the time for the Democrats to show some backbone. Trump is forcing, with the El Salvador order alone, 190,000 American citizen children to either leave their families, or leave their country.
Democrats should block a new budget until DACA and TPS families are protected by law against deportation, even if it leads to a government shutdown. Let our so-called pro-family Republicans justify their forcing US citizens to abandon their families.
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At this stage, no one should be surprised.
A suggestion for these folks is to get to Europe, preferably in the area where Trump likes to cultivate his visa workers from.
They will be at one of his properties in no time.
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Do you have any idea how hard and expensive it is to immigrate to Europe legally and then obtain citizenship?
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In the law there is something called Laches. In certain types of civil actions, Laches is a defense in cases where the plaintiff takes too long to seek to enforce their rights. The US Supreme Court said Laches "was dictated by experience, and is founded in a salutary policy. The lapse of time carries with it the memory and life of witnesses, the muniments of evidence, and other means of proof" Costello v. US, 365 U. S. 265, 282.
But there is another argument for Laches, and one with particular relevance with respect to immigration. When the law is not enforced, those that would be effected build lives. People marry, build families, create businesses all with the reasonable knowledge that the government, which has sat on its rights for so long, is unlikely to ever enforce them.
Laches is limited today to courts of equity - it has no legal relevance in immigration cases. But the principles it reflects surely provide a perspective from which to view cases where people have lived in this country for decades. Yes, many came here illegally. Others stayed far longer than their initial entry permitted. But at a certain point the injustice in late application of the law surely exceeds that resulting from the initial offense.
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Most of the people illegally present in the country have been guilty of the crimes of tax evasion and/or identity theft, which would make them subject to deportation even if they were legal aliens. Those with temporary refugee status have been presumably living mostly legal lives, but they have known all along that their status was temporary and they have been free to return home for at least a decade.
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Obama dropped the ball again he should have taken care of ithis 9 years ago when he had the house and senate on his side.Worse president in my life time.
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An excellent point, and one that bears repeating.
But, of course, there is not a shred of equity in this administration.
17 years, a bit longer than "temporary" and high time the decision was made. Temporary measures seem to morph into permanent without a serious glance these days and if folks want permanent policy, let Congress construct such a law.
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TPS recipient children should not be given citizenship as a condition for arrival. Ditto for H1-B visas, birth tourism, and those present illegally. Trump won in part because there was the (correct) sense that US immigration policy was completely out of control, and was largely a one way door into the US with absolutely no control by the residents of the US. TPS recipients should have received a letter every single year indicating their presence was temporary and could be rescinded at any time with 18 months notice and would be at some point in the future. Criteria could have been included that the TPS participant could have monitored on their own, to know how close the termination loomed. Recipients would have maintained more connections.
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I suppose it might be difficult for these 200,000 to return home to El Salvador, especially having to face all those that endured the same disasters but braved on in spite of and didn’t get a chance to leave. It would be nice if El Salvador could become a better place to live instead of a place seen as only to abandon.
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The pet theory is these people are hurting the economy and represent a threat to blue collar workers, who make up Trump's rural base. I don't know if this true, or even if it is true that it much matters. The perception is immigration is the root of wage stagnation, though perhaps the reality is the squeeze is more from corporations keeping wages down, outsourcing, or moving factories oversees. And it is always easier to solve a phony problem than to address a real one.
Also, the question of legality always struck me as a odd one, as immigration law is fairly far removed from economic reality, and more a result of government's fear and people's sense of exclusivity. What I mean, it's entirely arbitrary, and if the rules changed tomorrow to grant permanent status, so what?
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Elias,
Automation and out-sourcing have displaced many. Tens of thousands of our own citizens, in their prime working years, have been out-of-work for so long that they are no longer counted in the unemployment rate.
Research conducted by the Harvard economist, George Borjas, found that the rate of Black employment decreased as the number of undocumented workers increased. It also showed that undocumented, by their large numbers, decreased the wages of our lowest paid workers by 8%.
We should not be treating our own citizens as if they were disposable. There are many fewer unskilled and low skilled jobs left. Why should we be allowing undocumented migrants to take any of them?
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It matters not, the law requires them to return, government is to uphold the laws, so unless they have some exception they return to their homes. This program needs to be eliminated.
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You're talking about 1 million people out of 320 million Americans, and some of those million are actually citizens; that's 0.3% for the numerically challenged. It is pretty hard to imagine that they're responsible for blue collar wage stagnation. The vast majority aren't even working blue collar jobs.
What *is* responsible for stagnation is unaffordable education, companies that no longer share productivity increases with their workers, but instead give everything to their executives, increased international competition and automation. Picking on a few relatively powerless people in this country, instead of solving real problems, however, is the hallmark of today's Republican party.
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While agreeing that the blunt-force approach of the Trump administration to immigration is jarring and unnecessarily disruptive, it is worthwhile to point out that T.P.S. is exactly the kind of program that turns many Americans against immigration in general. It was intended as a short-term reaction to an immediate issue (the 2001 earthquakes), but has been extended to 17 years, until the immigrant community it serves has seen extension as a right, not a privilege. The argument that the Salvadoran immigrant community should be allowed to stay indefinitely, on the basis that they have been here for so long, because of a program that was never intended to be a door to citizenship or permanent residence, simply doesn't stand up to criticism.
If Democrats, liberals, etc want the Salvadorans to be delivered from 'uncertainty and chaos', then they should pass a law to give that community legal residence, not continuous temporary extensions to their status. Half-measures and temporary solutions that kick the can down the road just alienate both sides, and make any fix unappealing to one side or the other, and usually both - not to mention the cost on the community.
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But isn't a big reason the Congress has not passed such a law because Republicans have sown the seeds of fear and xenophobia? Salvadorans and others are characterized as importing their "failed" cultures to the US, when they're actually no different from the many previous immigrant groups such as German, Italian and Irish who were escaping poverty and oppression (i.e. "failed" cultures: think the "48ers" from Germany) and who often lived in isolated communities once here, speaking their "native" tongues for generations before assimilating. (These groups often had a criminal component as well.)
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Absolutely immigrants today have faced harsh and xenophobic attacks. But so did the other groups you pointed out - the Germans less so until two world wars, but the Irish are infamously discriminated against for over a century ("No dogs, negros or Irish" signs being the most pointed example). Italians actually form a great comparison, since they were initially allowed to enter as seasonal labor that were expected to return to Italy once they had finished their work, and many stayed as the economy of Italy failed to improve, and as they built lives here, and they were demonized for generations as lawless and parasitic for that reason. That said, then as now, there were powerful Nativist, xenophobic forces at work which criticized and opposed immigration.
This is not a new problem, but the solution hasn't changed - if the system isn't working, stop trying to do an end-run around it - CHANGE the system. Yes, there is a segment of the population for which 1 immigrant is too many, but most anti-immigration Republicans are more law-and-order than they are racist. They don't really think much about immigration, but hate the notion that people can break the law, and then benefit from doing so, and those are the people you need to convince that a fixed immigration system is worth passing.
TPS holders need a path to permanent residency. That someone who has lived and worked legally in the US for almost 20 years is still considered "temporary" is absurd. Endless 18-month extensions of legal status were never a tenable solution for TPS holders; only legislation creating a path to citizenship could lead the way out of immigration limbo. Sadly, it is likely too late for Salvadorans.
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It was a self imposed limbo. they were always free to return home and always knew their status was temporary.
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TPS holders can apply for a green card if they have an employer or American citizen relative to sponsor them. Most don't have relatives of age who are American citizens and their employers would be hard pressed to prove that no Americans can do the work the TPS person is doing so there is that.....
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I have a student; I will call her Estela. Her Salvadoran parents are in the US through TPS. Estela, born in the US, is close to becoming a nurse and is desperately waiting until she is 21, and able to support her parents to get permanent papers. If the parents are forced to return to El Salvador, they might well be murdered.
This policy is shortsighted, destructive and cruel. It will adversely affect any economic stability that El Salvador might develop and generate more gang violence more here in the US and there in El Salvador.
Please explain how this supports reform of immigration policy--it feels like someone victimizing an extraordinarily vulnerable community.
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It supports the rule of law, nothing else matters.
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Estela was born to illegal immigrant parents. At age 21, she will not be able to support her parents and prevent them from becoming wards of the state and should not be permitted to sponsor them for dependent visas. Who do you think you are kidding? [The temporary program has only been in place for 13 years.]
She should take the nursing skills she has acquired and return to the land of her parents.
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ebmem: I would be interested in knowing where you got the got the 13 years time frame. This article, and every source I've seen are saying 16- 17 years.
"...be temporary relief after a pair of earthquakes in 2001..."
A logical question would be: how come it’s so easy for Trump to cause so much disruption with DACA kids and Salvadorians. It’s because their current state is the product of executive action rather then legislation. So, things are easily changed. Why hasn’t there been legislation enacted to memorialize I to law the permanent status of these folks?
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Because it probably would not pass, the president could have taken care of the dreamers when Dems were a majority, they never even tried. That shows how important they really are to Dems.
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Because Republicans torpedoed the comprehensive immigration reform in 2011-2013. In particular, Boehner refused to schedule a vote citing the pedophile rule (pardon, Hastert rule) even thought there were enough votes in total for the law to pass.
Let us not forget - that the United States helped to destabilize El Salvador in the 1980s when we unofficially used it as a base for military operations supporting the Contras in their war against the Sandinistas in neighboring Nicaragua. Quite frankly, the country - and the region has never recovered from our meddling. I recall El Salvadorians wanting to request asylum back then when their country was a war zone - due in part to our presence there - but were denied - because - officially they were not at war. Trump's decision is morally wrong on so many different levels.
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Thanks, Rufus, for pointing out our historic responsibility for so much of the disorder in Central America. Our young people are probably unaware of this, and those of us old enough to recall it forget too easily. (Or, shame on us, we didn't pay enough attention at the time.) We have a lot to answer for in all the countries we so cavalierly dismiss as "banana republics."
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Sorry, but there is no practical way to "make that up" to 6.5 million Salvadoran citizens. And why THIS group of 200,000? that's just a tiny fraction of all Salvadorans!
Even if I accepted your premise that the US destroyed some paradise in El Salvador.....the solution would be increased aid, building and infrastructure projects -- the donation of food and medical services.
Not to transfer the population HERE. That is unfair to our own struggling poor & working class citizens.
If El Salvador has problems....keeping 200,000 of their citizens here will not solve them in any way.
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Blaming Americans is not helpful or accurate. Over population in Latino nations is not our fault.
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I think the facts are that these people were allowed into the US through the graciousness of the American people to help during a time of crisis. At the time they were allowed in, it was explained that they would have to return to their homeland some time in the future.
Why the big to do when we want to follow through on the agreement and send them back? We can not afford to take care of everyone from all the poor countries in the world when we are still not taking care of our people in Puerto Rico, Florida and Texas after the hurricanes. Americans First please!
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The big to-do is because we waited about 15 years too long to pull the plug on them. If we were going to send them home, we should have done it years ago, before they had the chance to rebuild their lives here and sink roots. That’s on us, not them. Our screwup, not theirs. Simple fairness says don’t make them pay for our mistake. Especially when to do so would be just plain cruel.
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You seem to believe that we have been "taking care of " these 200,000 people for 17 years. In fact, the vast majority of them have been contributing to our society, by building businesses, paying taxes, buying homes and American goods and services, and being employed. The humanitarian costs of this policy are unacceptable. If those are not sufficient to sway you, think in terms of the hit our economy will take by losing all of those contributing workers, the dip in the real estate market as all of their homes and apartments go empty, the hit to the communities where they pay taxes, and the loss of all the revenue for all the goods and services they purchase. Let's do some estimates: 200,000 X 60% employed X $20,000 average salary =$2.4 BILLION a year contribution to our economy. These people are NOT freeloaders--they are our neighbors and an integral part of the fabric of our nation.
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Other readers have furnished the true reason the majority Salvadoreans arrived in the United States--the U.S. support of Central American militias and right wing military dictators who systematically attacked their own people. As a fig leaf for the immigration program, Congress hit upon earthquakes, which, ostensibly, President Reagan did not surreptitiously fund. Thus, now we read contracting firms in Florida and Houston saying they need those Salvadorean carpenters and sheetrock men. Enough with the nativist nonsense. Let us create and support policies that reflect global realities, effective economic premises, and humane values.
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A feature, not a bug, in the minds of the current administration (and its base). I'm positive.
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Besides all the economic and political reasons given in this article for why deciding these Salvadorans can't stay longer in the U. S., I think one more deserves mention:
This decision is just plain mean and cruel.
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How about people who wait for years like my parents to come here legally?
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But legal, so even if it is mean and cruel that does not matter.
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Too bad Senator Obama did not support immigration reform under the Bush administration. This could have been resolved over ten years ago, but for the obstruction of Democrats. But that would have meant the Democrats would have lost their ability to exploit vulnerable populations.
Obama beats Trump for self-aggrandizing cruelty and selfishness.
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