Washington — Hundreds of thousands of immigrants breathed sighs of relief Wednesday after a federal judge stopped the Trump administration from taking away their right to stay and live in the U.S.
About 300,000 immigrants have temporary protected status, or TPS, which protects them from deportation and allows them to live and work legally in the United States for years, and in some cases, even decades.
When the Trump administration announced it would cancel TPS for many earlier this year and in 2017, Xiomara Cruz, an immigrant from El Salvador, tried to hold her tears back for as long as she could. It wasn’t until she saw her eldest son William, 26, that she finally broke down.
“She was in tears and that just like broke my heart,” said William. “For somebody to take it away, it’s like the feeling you get when somebody passes away. When somebody takes your life.”
Wednesday’s ruling offered some comfort for immigrants like Xiomara and others after a long period of doubt and uncertainty, but the fight isn’t over.
For Xiomara and her two sons, the initial cancellation of TPS meant they could legally remain in the United States until January 2019. After that, their options were either to return to El Salvador and leave everything they’ve known for the past 20 years, or risk living undocumented in the U.S. and possibly get deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, commonly known as ICE.
If she returns to El Salvador with her two sons, she would be forced to leave her two houses, her husband and her youngest son in Maryland. Henry, 17, was born in the U.S. and is a senior in high school.
For Xiomara, leaving is not an option.
“Everything that we’ve built, all the sacrifice, all the effort, all the savings in our house – 20 years of being here and then all of sudden we have to leave,” Xiomara said.
“They said [TPS] is temporary, but our lives aren’t temporary.”
In the latest example of the Trump administration’s hard-line stance on immigration, one-by-one, TPS was terminated for El Salvador, Honduras, Haiti, Nepal, Sudan and Nicaragua.
The special immigration status was created in 1990 to allow people from countries hit by natural disasters, or other man-made disasters like war, to legally stay in the United States. It would protect them from deportation until their native countries recovered and they could return safely, according to Sharon Scheidhaur, Public Affairs Officer for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
But not all victims of natural and man-made disasters were eligible to apply. Only people living and residing in the U.S. at the time of the disaster could get temporary protected status.
There is currently no way for TPS holders to become U.S. citizens, regardless of how long they live in the U.S. Instead, they were required to reregister every 18 months to extend their protected status, Scheidhaur confirmed.
William, Xiomara’s eldest son, considers Maryland his only home after emigrating with his mom when he was 6 years old. After earning enough money as an iron worker to buy a truck and condo, he was looking forward to a bright future.
If legislation isn’t passed to allow him to stay permanently, he would have to throw that all away. He believes that if he returns to El Salvador, his limited Spanish will make him a target to local gangs – like the Mara Salvatrucha, commonly known as MS13, who target Americans.
For Nelsy Umanzor’s family, the uncertainty revolving around TPS isn’t the only problem. He and his wife were protected with TPS, but his eldest child was protected by DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. Like TPS, DACA doesn’t currently have a pathway to U.S. citizenship.
Nelsy believes that the current administration isn’t thinking about the people who are truly affected by its hard stance on immigration. His 7-year-old son, a U.S. citizen, is just one of 273,000 kids born to parents with TPS, according to the Center for Migration Studies.
“The cancellation of TPS was not analyzed, it wasn’t researched. It’s part of the many tactics used by the government to suppress immigration,” Nelsy said. “I think this is a country made by immigrants and can’t continue to go forward without immigrants.”
After Salvadorans, the second-largest population impacted by the planned termination of their protected status are Honduran immigrants. About 57,000 Hondurans must leave the U.S. by January 2020. Honduras was first granted TPS in 1999 after Hurricane Mitch and was extended 14 times in the past two decades, said Scheidhauer.
And Honduras was left out of Wednesday's ruling. According to the National TPS Alliance, Honduras and Nepal weren't included because the lawsuit was filed before the program was terminated for those two countries.
“However, it is possible that the case can be expanded to include, but hasn’t yet,” National TPS Alliance said in an Instagram post.
Mardoel Hernandez has lived in the United States for 30 years and held temporary protected status for 20 years. He said that his native country of Honduras has slowly recuperated but is in no shape to take in thousands of people.
“Violence has increased to a level that people are immigrating in masses because of the danger and the lack of opportunity,” Mardoel said.
An immigration activist, Mardoel believes that all TPS holders have contributed to the country’s economy and its future, and deserve a path to citizenship. He works closely with the National TPS Alliance branch in Washington D.C. and has made multiple trips to Congress to not only discuss his case, but also hundreds of thousands of other TPS cases.
“We love this country like it’s our own,” Mardoel said. “We’ve earned the opportunity to stay.”
Many people with temporary protected status previously felt no need to fight for a path to citizenship because they believed TPS protected them from deportation. But, according to them, the current administration has proved that no status is truly protected, and now they have taken up the fight for citizenship.
So far, the Trump administration has said Somalis can reregister and keep their temporary protected status through March 2020. According to the Associated Press, protections were extended for about 1,100 Yemenis and 6,900 Syrians who already have them, but the administration has said it won't take on new applicants.
The Associated Press and USA TODAY contributed to this report.
