End to 'temporary' status for US migrants feared under Trump

WASHINGTON (AP) — Nancy Vasquez left the turmoil in her native El Salvador behind and moved to the U.S., where she was able to support her family, buy a house and start a food-truck business catering to workers on the outskirts of Washington thanks to a "temporary" residency permit that has lasted for nearly 20 years.

Immigrants and their supporters fear President Donald Trump's skepticism about immigration means he will take a harder line than his predecessors on a program that began as a humanitarian gesture to temporarily defer deportations of people from countries that were considered too fragile to take them back — especially Central American nations devastated by war or natural disasters.

Many see an ominous sign in the Department of Homeland Security's May 22 decision to grant only a six-month extension of "temporary protected status" for nearly 60,000 Haitians instead of the standard 18 months.

Critics argue that renewal has come to seem automatic, encouraging illegal immigration and violating the spirit of what was originally a temporary program to protect people fleeing Central America's civil wars of past decades.

Both they and previous policymakers in Washington have feared that a mass return of citizens would cause economic and social chaos by hitting a crucial source of foreign income, remittances from workers abroad, while flooding impoverished countries with jobless people.

Immigrant advocates also say those sent back to Honduras and El Salvador could be exposed to horrific gang violence, which has driven recent waves of migrants who aren't covered by TPS.

Cecilia Menjvar, a University of Kansas sociology professor who has conducted of surveys of people with the status, said 90 percent of people on TPS are in the labor force and many have started businesses.

People in TPS aren't eligible for public benefits, must pay taxes and undergo background checks when they submit renewal applications.