IMMIGRATION/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “The Trump administration has until Monday [1-8-18] to decide whether some 200,000 Salvadoran immigrants allowed to live and work in the U.S. since 2001 may stay in the country under protections that were meant to be temporary.
Many are already looking for ways to circumvent a potential end to those protections and plan to remain here no matter what the government decides…
In Los Angeles, home to one of the largest communities of Salvadorans shielded from deportation under the program, advocacy organizations are encouraging immigrants to apply for permission to stay through other legal avenues.
In 2001, the U.S. allowed Salvadorans already here to remain after a series of earthquakes devastated parts of their home country. That permission, known as Temporary Protected Status, was also granted to nationals of other countries whose homelands suffered severe natural disasters, war or disease.
Only immigrants already living in the U.S. at the time of a disaster back home and who didn’t have a criminal record were eligible to stay under the program…
According to the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress, Salvadorans here under the program are parents to more than 192,000 U.S.-born children, and their departure from the country would mean a loss of more than $109 billion to the economy over 10 years.”
-Alicia A. Caldwell, “Salvadoran Immigrants Await Trump Administration’s Decision on Status,” The Wall Street Journal online, Jan. 7, 2018 09:18pm