Temporary Protected Status (TPS): It is in the interests of both the United States and El Salvador

I have an op-ed on The Trump Administration's decision to end Temporary Protected States for 200,000 Salvadorans in Citizenship for Salvadorans is right for the US for The Hill.

The Bush and Obama administrations recognized that political, economic, and social conditions in El Salvador would make the re-integration of these TPS recipients further destabilizing at the same time that the U.S. was investing hundreds of millions of dollars to improve conditions on the ground. Rescinding TPS would be counterproductive for the U.S. and for El Salvador.

Monday’s decision is consistent with the Trump administration’s strongly negative policies towards legal and illegal immigrants and in using vulnerable migrant populations as a bargaining chip to restrict future migrant populations from settling in the U.S.

After nearly two decades abiding by the conditions of TPS, Congress and the Trump administration must at a minimum return legal protection to 200,000 of our neighbors and, hopefully, a path to citizenship. It is in the interests of both the United States and El Salvador.

The op-ed was in the queue prior to Trump's reference to "shithole" countries. Knowing what the president said would not have changed the substance of my point, but it probably would have changed how I framed it. Making TPS permanent would be good for recipients and their families, El Salvador, and the United States.

I also wanted to include more on the overall US-El Salvador relationship but you can read Gene Palumbo and Azam Ahmed's El Salvador Again Feels the Hand of Washington Shaping its Fate.

I understand the concerns that some people have about extending protections to people who came to the country illegally but that narrow reading of the situation should not prevail in the face of political, social, economic, historical, and moral arguments in favor of permanent residency and citizenship.