TPS, which means Temporary Protected Status, has been in the news a lot lately. The following is an explanation of the significant impact resulting from changes that were announced recently for persons from particular countries that have this status.

Persons present in the United States prior to specific years and from particular countries may be allowed to apply for TPS due to conditions in the country that temporarily prevent the country’s nationals from returning safely or if the country is not able to handle the return satisfactorily. Temporary conditions that may grant a country for TPS are: ongoing armed conflict, environmental disasters, or other extraordinary conditions.
The Trump administration has made it clear that TPS will not protect immigrants indefinitely and that it wants recipients to begin thinking about leaving the United States. More than 320,000 people from 10 different countries (El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria, and Yemen) are at risk of losing protected status in 2018. A majority of the TPS holders are from El Salvador, Honduras, and Haiti.

Ending the TPS status will take away work authorization from hardworking men and women and risk sending them back into harm’s way and splitting families. The majority of TPS holders have been working in and contributing to the US economy and communities for more than 15 years. Failure to renew TPS and deporting people will detriment the economy and the communities both in the US and overseas. These countries are not prepared to receive such an influx of people and it means that unemployment rate will rise as well. In addition, there is still a high volume of poverty and crime putting people in danger. Lastly, these countries will receive a big hit on remittances. TPS beneficiaries that live in the US send a lot of money back home to struggling family members. These remittances are a vast source of income for the respective countries GDP and help support the recovery from devastating environmental disasters and provide access to proper nutrition.

According to Svajlenka, Bautista-Chavez, and Lopez from the Center for American Progress (CAP), their analysis shows that if Salvadoran, Honduran, and Haitian workers with TPS were removed from the labor force, the United States would lose $164 billion in gross domestic product (GDP) over the next decade. Additionally, if TPS holders lost their work authorization, it would result in a $6.9 billion reduction to Social Security and Medicare contributions over a decade, as calculated by the Immigrant Legal Resource Center. Finally, if TPS holders could no longer work in their current jobs, employers would experience $967 million in turnover costs.
TPS beneficiaries have to decide whether to leave the US or stay and face arrests and deportation. If they have to return to their countries, they will be placing their lives and the lives of their families in danger. Their return will mean returning to some of the most dangerous countries on earth. In El Salvador for example, there are enduring gang violence and homicide rates, as well as violence attributed to drug trafficking. Honduras, even tough has made efforts and improvements in protecting their nationals and improving the systems, the number of people needing protection and access to services continues to increase. Sadly, there is no sign of capacity for a sustained integration of a large group nor a large-scale integration program or services.   

TPS holders have roughly as many US-born citizen children. If TPS ends, these US-citizen children would face many risks such as separation from their parents and/or relocation to a country foreign to them. Having the fear of family separation or deportation of parents have been found to have detrimental effects on children’s cognitive and psychological well-being.
It is clear that ending TPS will have tremendous impact in all the countries involved as well as all the TPS holders and their families.