Donald Trump ends protections for 200,000 Salvadorans

Donald Trump’s government has announced it will end protection for more than 200,000 nationals of El Salvador who have lived in the US for more than 15 years, leaving them without any legal status.

El Salvador is the fourth nation Trump has cut from the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) programme, which provides the right to live and work legally to people from countries that have suffered from war or natural disasters.

The TPS protections are normally granted for 12 months, and are periodically reviewed to determine if the need for protection is ongoing, and whether the time limit should be extended.

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Temporary protections were offered to Salvadorans who were in the US in March 2001, after two massive earthquakes killed more than 1,000 people and destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes.

Those protections were routinely extended under both George W. Bush and Barack Obama. The latest extension came in 2016, when “drought, poverty and widespread gang violence in El Salvador” were cited as reasons to keep the protections in place, The New York Times reports.

Yesterday, however, the Department of Homeland Security said: “The original conditions caused by the 2001 earthquakes no longer exist. Thus, under the applicable statute, the current TPS designation must be terminated.”

According to The Guardian, “51 per cent of Salvadorans with TPS have lived in the US for more than 20 years and 34 per cent have homes with mortgages”. Many of the families have children who were born in the US.

Salvadorans will have until 9 September 2019 to either “seek other means of staying in the US or prepare to leave”, CNN says.