Washington, DC – Today, the Trump administration ended the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program for El Salvador effective September 9, 2019. TPS provides legal status to individuals from designated countries who are unable to return home due to ongoing armed conflict, disaster, or other exigent and temporary circumstances. TPS holders from El Salvador will have until September 9, 2019 to leave the United States or seek other means to obtain lawful permanent residency. Termination of TPS will affect nearly 200,000 nationals of El Salvador who have complied with the law and built lives, businesses, and families in the U.S. The decision also places more than 192,000 U.S. citizen children of Salvadoran TPS holders at risk of losing a parent or being forced to leave their own country.

Michelle Brané, director of the Migrant Rights and Justice program at the Women's Refugee Commission, made the following statement:

“The Trump administration’s decision to terminate Temporary Protected Status for nearly 200,000 Salvadorans living here in America is a cruel and unnecessary decision that will harm American children. The 192,000 U.S. citizen children of Salvadoran TPS holders will find themselves in an impossible situation: move with their parents to a country experiencing high levels of violence that is ill-equipped to handle their return, or remain in the U.S. without the care of their parents. Either option is a tragedy for American families and communities.The decision to end TPS for El Salvador takes away legal status from thousands of responsible community members with the swipe of a pen and will have a ripple effect on schools, health care, and social services across the country as children are left without primary caregivers.This is yet another example of the Trump administration’s continued attacks on vulnerable migrant families without regard for the people whose lives are torn apart, or for the American communities in which they live.”