WaPo has an important article up which investigates the Trump administration’s plans for TPS recipients form El Salvador in particular. The article describes how many Salvadoran people came to the US or could not return home in 2001 after a devastating earthquake. President Bushand granted them temporary protected status due to conditions in their home countries that made it difficult or impossible to return home. Since then, their status has been renewed by presidents from both parties. The initial TPS designations for natural disasters or armed conflicts have been in effect since 1990. Over the past 28 years, many of these people put down roots, some also had children who were born in US and therefore US citizens.
Then Trump came along and began to implement his white supremacist agenda, with the support of avowed white supremacists like Stephen Miller. They decided to expel all TPS recipients. What this article newly reveals is that they also hoped to push out US citizen children, along with their parents.
In canceling TPS for Haitians, Hondurans, Nepalis, Sudanese, Nicaraguans and Salvadorans, the Trump administration forced families like Emily’s to confront the question that past administrations had avoided: What would happen to all these American kids when their parents were officially ordered to leave the country?
The Department of Homeland Security had an answer. “We will coordinate with the Government of El Salvador to better understand what documents might be needed by U.S. citizen children to enroll in local schools, access local health services, or other social services,” a DHS spokeswoman wrote to me in June. In other words, the government expected nearly 193,000 American kids to leave the United States along with their parents. Simple as that. — www.washingtonpost.com/...
When coupled with reports of minors seeking asylum being separated from their parents at the border, it’s clear that this administration is pursuing a policy of ethnic cleansing. Their white nationalist agenda has been clear since day one. I just didn’t think they would be so cruel as to intentionally target children, I underestimated their capacity for cruelty two years ago. Never will again.
The article focuses on the tortuous decisions to be made by one family, whether they should leave a US citizen child behind, or take him along to El Salvador, fully aware that he might be killed by gangs. These families have been traumatized by the Trump administration’s decision. School officials have reported children going through immense insecurity and fear as a result of this policy. A senior manager at one of the schools WaPo spoke with said this:
“The kids are experiencing mass anxiety. Tense muscles, fatigue, worry, distraction, catastrophic thinking. Even if it’s a specific anxiety about their parents’ immigration status, it can become more globalized. Stressors in school that are normally manageable feel daunting and overwhelming.” — www.washingtonpost.com/...
The Trump administration is also fully aware of how dangerous things are in El Salvador. A couple of days after the White House announced it was canceling the TPS program for Salvadoran’s, the state department issued a warning that:
“violent crime, such as murder, assault, rape, and armed robbery, is common; gang activity, such as extortion, violent street crime, and narcotics and arms trafficking, is widespread; [and] local police may lack the resources to respond effectively to serious criminal incidents.” — www.washingtonpost.com/...
It makes for tough reading, but it underscores how serious the threat is, and how important it is for us to organize and win back power in 2018. The Trump administration intentionally and cruelly targets minorities, especially children. We need to wrest this power away from them by winning both the House and the Senate. Senate races that are in play and worthy of your time or donations are:
— @subirgrewal