The School Sisters of Notre Dame Central Pacific Province is among hundreds of faith leaders and organizations urging an extension of Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, for El Salvador before it expires in September.
A TPS designation grants the U.S. government the power to shield eligible migrants from deportation if they are from countries experiencing dangerous conditions such as war, disaster, or other unrest. El Salvador’s TPS designation is scheduled to expire Sept. 9, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The removal of that legal status would impact about 170,000 Salvadoran nationals in the U.S., according to the Congressional Research Service.
“We believe that sending hundreds of thousands of Salvadoran TPS holders back into an unstable and unfamiliar country that does not have the capability to support its own nationals is a danger to those individuals and a decision that would have severe negative consequences for years to come,” cautioned an August 21 letter sent to the Department of Homeland Security. “A thoughtful review of the current conditions in El Salvador, consideration of their contributions as TPS holders to the United States and the administration’s obligation to respect the statutory framework which governs TPS, supports an extension of El Salvador’s TPS designation.”