Earlier this year, the Trump administration announced that it would terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for approximately 260,000 Salvadorans who live in the US. As a result, Nelsy Umanzor, a Salvadoran TPS holder, is now at risk of losing the temporary legal status that allowed him to work and raise a family in Maryland for the past 17 years.
TPS was established through the Immigration Act of 1990 to grant legal status and work authorization to immigrants from countries that were subject to armed conflict, natural disaster, or other extraordinary temporary conditions.
In 2001, after two destructive earthquakes rattled El Salvador, President Bush granted Salvadorans residing in the US Temporary Protected Status. After 18 years of renewals, TPS is set to end for Salvadorans on September 19, 2019.
As the deadline approaches, hundreds of thousands of families will have to decide whether to return to El Salvador to start all over again or stay in the US as unauthorized immigrants and return to the shadows.
Watch the video above to learn more about TPS and the ways in which its termination affects Salvadorans like Umanzor in the US.
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