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Last week, the U.S. government gave more than 200,000 Salvadorans living here temporarily the opportunity to stay for at least another year and a half. These immigrants have Temporary Protected Status, or TPS. This is for immigrants who are already living in the U.S. when a natural or humanitarian disaster hits their country. Alexandra Starr reports that in some cases TPS seems to be more permanent than temporary.
ALEXANDRA STARR, BYLINE: Alex Sanchez left El Salvador for the United States in 1999. For the first few years, he didn't have papers. And that made for a difficult life.
ALEX SANCHEZ: (Speaking Spanish).
STARR: "I didn't have a stable job," he says. "Practically speaking, I was dependent on my mother."
But then, in 2001, an earthquake devastated El Salvador, causing more than $2 billion in damage. The U.S. government then granted Salvadorans something called Temporary Protected Status, or TPS. That program is for immigrants like Sanchez who are living in the United States illegally when their home country is overcome by something like a hurricane or a civil war. Over the past 25 years, the U.S. government has placed 19 countries on the TPS list. Once Sanchez got TPS, he took a job as a handyman.
SANCHEZ: (Speaking Spanish).
STARR: "It would have been impossible for me to have a job with my company if I didn't have legal documents," he says. "Thanks to TPS, I was able to find my job and stay in my job."
Sanchez was able to keep his job because El Salvador has not been taken off the TPS list since the 2001 earthquake. Salvadorans actually account for more than half of the nearly 350,000 immigrants with that status.
MARC ROSENBLUM: With countries like El Salvador, where you have, you know, over 200,000 people with TPS and they've had it for, you know, more than a decade, it gets increasingly difficult to imagine ending that designation because it's going to have such a huge impact on such a large number of people.
STARR: That's Marc Rosenblum. He is with the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C. think-tank. TPS has been around since 1990. It was signed into law by then-President George H. W. Bush. Presidents from both parties have granted it through the years. Bosnian and Sudanese immigrants were given TPS during the civil wars in their countries. Last year three African nations contending with the Ebola outbreak were added to the list. Once a country is on the TPS list, the administration reevaluates every 18 months whether it should stay on. As Rosenblum explains, Central American countries in particular have made maintaining TPS a priority.
ROSENBLUM: You know, those countries have actively lobbied to be kept on the list because they benefit very much from having, you know, some of their nationals here and being eligible to work and to send remittances versus being subject to being deported.
STARR: El Salvador and Honduras are also racked by gang violence. That factors into the decision to keep them on the list. The fact that TPS seems semi-permanent for a lot of immigrants frustrates Mark Krikorian. He is director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that advocates for a restrictionist immigration policy.
MARK KRIKORIAN: It's a kind of lottery or jackpot for illegal immigrants who just happened to be here when a volcano explodes in their home country.
STARR: Krikorian says he understands there are situations where immigrants can't return, but he thinks TPS needs to be reformed.
KRIKORIAN: It needs to be much more clearly temporary. In other words, there need to be mechanisms to prevent it from turning into a permanent grant of amnesty.
STARR: Of course, TPS isn't the equivalent of an actual green card. To maintain their work authorization, immigrants have to pay $465 every 18 months. Just last week Salvadorans and Syrians were informed their TPS status would be extended. For NPR News, I'm Alexandra Starr in New York.