The Machinations of Empire
Hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans will soon be at risk of deportation — just the latest injustice they've suffered at the hands of the US state.
Immigration activists stage a protest in front of the US Capitol on December 6, 2017. Alex Wong / Getty
On Monday, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced it was terminating protections that have shielded over two hundred thousand Salvadorans in the United States from deportation for nearly twenty years. After a final eighteen-month extension, Salvadoran Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders will join the ranks of over a million US residents newly vulnerable to deportation under Trump.
They and their families have been thrown into chaos, twice uprooted by the machinations of US empire, with only a dysfunctional Congress to look to for relief.
An Imperial Legacy
DHS’s decision came nearly seventeen years to the day after the first of two massive earthquakes devastated El Salvador, prompting US officials to grant Temporary Protected Status to thousands of undocumented Salvadorans then residing in the country, most of whom had fled the violence and destruction of El Salvador’s twelve-year, US-backed civil war (1980–1992) and its aftermath.
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