Everybody Loses: Ending Protection for Salvadorans Provides No Benefit, Destroys Families

January 8, 2018

01.08.2018

Washington, DC — Statement from KIND President Wendy Young:

“The Trump Administration is starting the new year with yet another futile action that devastates families, particularly children, causes great suffering, damages communities, and further degrades America’s commitment to family unity and protecting the most vulnerable.

Ending Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 200,000 Salvadorans, many of whom have been in the United States for two decades and who are the parents of more than 190,000 U.S. citizen children, serves no legitimate purpose. It will not stop refugees and immigrants fleeing gangs, human traffickers and narco-traffickers in Central America from coming to the United States.

It will, however, wrench families apart, cause economic harm in both the United States and El Salvador, and send people back to a country they no longer know—one  with the highest murder rate in Latin America. In a harsh reversal of their needed protection, this decision makes hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans extremely vulnerable to grave violence, exploitation, and human trafficking.  It also puts returnees – particularly women and the children who return with family members — at serious risk of rape and other sexual and gender-based violence given El Salvador’s high levels of this violence and no meaningful protection for survivors. This is not who we are as Americans.

In addition, El Salvador is completely unprepared to receive thousands of deportees or address their needs and safety.  This could lead to further destabilization of the country.

A meaningful response to migration from Central America is to address the root causes of this flight while ensuring the protection of those who are most vulnerable.”

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Media Contact: Megan McKenna, mmckenna@supportkind.org, 202-631-9990