Extension of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Salvadorans Demonstrates that Program Should be Revised or Terminated, Says FAIR

(Washington, D.C. - September 25, 2008)

Hurricane Mitch struck El Salvador ten years ago, and the effects of the storm are still being felt today - in the United States. Using the occasion of a meeting with Salvadoran President Elias Antonio Saca in New York, the Bush administration announced the extension of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Salvadoran nationals living in the United States until September 10, 2010.

The latest extension provides still further evidence that politics, not exigent circumstances, dictate TPS policies, charged the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). Since TPS was established in 1990, the program has been repeatedly used as a means to grant administrative amnesty to illegal aliens from a number of countries.

Time and again, Temporary Protected Status has proven to be anything but temporary," said Dan Stein, president of FAIR. "By the time the latest extension for Salvadorans expires, 12 years will have elapsed from the proximate cause that triggered TPS being granted in the first place. In almost every instance that this supposedly humanitarian benefit has been granted, the temporary relief has turned into a permanent amnesty program for people who were in the country illegally when the triggering event occurred."

Even when politically driven extensions of TPS have finally come to an end, history indicates that most of the beneficiaries seek to remain here, claiming that returning home after so many years would pose a hardship. Because of repeated abuses that have turned TPS into a backdoor immigration program, FAIR has called for the elimination of the program, or barring those who are in the country illegally from qualifying.

"With this latest extension of TPS to Salvadorans, the American people have good reason to believe that their humanitarian gesture is being abused," said Stein. "Not only have repeated unnecessary extensions of TPS harmed Americans, but they have become an impediment to reconstruction in El Salvador. It has created an economic incentive for the leaders of that country to rely on remittances from workers in this country, rather than rebuild the economy.

"We now have a 20-year body of evidence that show that TPS has failed to honor its stated objectives and it is time for Congress to terminate the program," concluded Stein.