09, Jan 2018 | CJP Team

The Los Angeles Times reported that United States President Donald Trump’s administration has announced that it will end “temporary protected status” for around 262,000 Salvadorans living in the country; they will have until September 9, 2019 to leave the US, “or, in some cases, to apply for alternative legal means of staying,” the LA Times said. In 2001, President George W. Bush first offered the special protections after two earthquakes ripped through El Salvador. According to the LA Times, administration officials said conditions in the country have significantly improved since. The LA Times said that El Salvador has seen “brutal gang violence” for years, but noted that Kirstjen Nielsen, Secretary of Homeland Security, concluded that, under law, she could only take into account the original conditions that prompted the special protections, i.e. the earthquakes and their effects. “Since then, anything else doesn’t really apply, including violence on the ground,” an official told reporters, the LA Times said, later noting that studies have estimated that Salvadorans holding temporary status have almost 200,000 children who are US citizens. In 2017, the US Department of Homeland Security ended temporary protections for Haitians and Nicaraguans.