Trump Administration Says That Nearly 200000 Salvadorans Must Leave
January 9, 2018 by admin
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But the Trump administration has been committed to reining in both legal and illegal immigration, most notably by ending protections for 800,000 young undocumented immigrants, known as Dreamers, beginning in March unless Congress grants them legal status before then.
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Emily Berl for The New York Times
And despite its name, the administration says, the Temporary Protected Status program, known as T.P.S., had turned into a quasi-permanent benefit for hundreds of thousands of people.
The Department of Homeland Security said that because damaged roads, schools, hospitals, homes and water systems had been reconstructed since the earthquakes, the Salvadorans no longer belonged in the program.
“Based on careful consideration of available information,” the department said in a statement, “the secretary determined that the original conditions caused by the 2001 earthquakes no longer exist. Thus, under the applicable statute, the current T.P.S. designation must be terminated.”
The ending of protection for Salvadorans, Haitians and Nicaraguans leaves fewer than 100,000 people in the program, which was signed into law by President George Bush in 1990.
It provides temporary lawful status and work authorization to people already in the United States, whether they entered legally or not, from countries affected by armed conflict, natural disaster or other strife. The homeland security secretary decides when a country merits the designation and can renew it for six, 12 or 18 months.
There is no limit to the number of extensions a country can receive. Countries that have received and then lost the designation in the past include Bosnia and Herzegovina, which endured a civil war in the 1990s, and Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia during the Ebola crisis. El Salvador was one of the first countries in the program because of its civil war; that designation expired in 1994.
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The administration is giving Salvadorans in the program until September 2019 to get their affairs in order. After that, they no longer will have permission to stay in the country, forcing them into a wrenching decision.
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La Prensa Grafica, via Associated Press
Ms. Lagunas said that she would remain in the United States illegally, risking arrest and deportation. But she would lose her job of 12 years without the work permit that comes with the protection. Her family would lose medical insurance and other benefits.
“There is nothing to go back to in El Salvador,” she said, speaking in Spanish. “The infrastructure may be better now, but the country is in no condition to receive us.”
With his protected status, Carlos Jiron, another Salvadoran, started a small contracting business and won bids for big jobs, including to paint federal buildings in the Washington area.
“We have built a life here,” said Mr. Jiron, 41, who lives with his wife and two American-born children in a four-bedroom house they bought in Springfield, Va.
He will have to decide whether to take his children to El Salvador, where he says they would not maximize their potential and would face safety threats; leave them with guardians in the United States; or remain in the country at the risk of arrest and deportation as one of the millions of undocumented immigrants.
His 14-year-old daughter, Tania, a fan of Disney movies and hip-hop music, said she could not fathom starting over in El Salvador. “This is where I was born and am supposed to be raised,” she said.
Temporary protections were granted to Salvadorans who were in the United States in March 2001 after two earthquakes in January and February of that year killed more than 1,000 people and destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes. Over the next 15 years, the George W. Bush and Obama administrations extended the protections several times.
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Tomas Munita for The New York Times
In 2016, the final time, the government cited several factors, including drought, poverty and widespread gang violence in El Salvador, as reasons to keep the protections in place.
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El Salvador has rebuilt since the earthquakes. But the violence — San Salvador, the capital, is considered one of the most dangerous cities on Earth — has inhibited investment and job creation, and prompted tens of thousands to flee. The country’s economy experienced the slowest growth of any in Central America in 2016, according to the World Bank.
But officials in the Trump administration say the only criteria the government should consider is whether the original reason for the designation — in this case, damage from the earthquakes — still exists.
Some lawmakers have introduced legislation to enable people with temporary protection to remain in the United States permanently. At the same time, instability in Venezuela has prompted some members of Congress from Florida to call for protected status for Venezuelans.
The government of El Salvador had asked the Trump administration to renew the designation for its citizens in the United States, citing drought and other factors. Money sent home from Salvadorans abroad is a lifeline for many in the country, where four out of 10 households subsist below the poverty line, according to the World Bank. In 2016, the $4.6 billion remitted from abroad, mostly from the United States, accounted for 17 percent of the country’s economy.
El Salvador’s president, Salvador Sánchez Cerén, spoke by phone with Kirstjen Nielsen, the homeland security secretary, on Friday to make one last plea. After Ms. Nielsen’s decision was announced on Monday, Mr. Sánchez posted on Twitter, calling it an 18-month “extension” of T.P.S. The post prompted a flurry of angry replies accusing him of trying to spin the bad news.
Su apreciación es incorrecta presidente. El TPS ya sido cancelado. No cambie la historia. @PoneleCoco pic.twitter.com/2HU55mypZb
—
Tono Rodriguez (@tonorodriguezu)
Jan. 8, 2018
Flor Mejia, who works in a day care center on the outskirts of San Salvador, said her family gets by with the help of money sent regularly by her sister and brother-in-law, who recently bought a home and have two children born in the United States. Her parents live in Chalatenango, a rural province in the northern part of the country, and are subsistence farmers, growing corn and beans for the family’s food supply.
“It’s going to be very difficult for my parents, not having this income anymore,” Ms. Mejia said.
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The United States Chamber of Commerce and immigrant advocacy organizations also had urged the administration to extend the protection, noting the Salvadorans’ deep connections to America. According to an analysis by one group, the Center for Migration Studies, Salvadoran beneficiaries have 192,700 American-born children; 88 percent participate in the labor force, compared with 63 percent for the overall United States population; and nearly one-quarter have a mortgage.
Donald M. Kerwin Jr., the center’s executive director, called rescinding protection for Salvadorans a “baffling ideological decision that is extraordinarily destructive on all ends. They are deeply vested and embedded in the U.S.”
In Houston, the elimination of protected status would aggravate a labor shortage already delaying repairs after Hurricane Harvey, said Stan Marek, the chief executive of Marek Brothers, a large construction company with offices across Texas and in Atlanta. At least 29 Salvadorans on his payroll are program recipients.
“During hurricane recovery, I especially need those men,” Mr. Marek said. “If they lose their status, I have to terminate them.”
But Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors restrictions on immigration, said the Trump administration was correctly abiding by the original intent of the program.
“We need to put the ‘T’ back into T.P.S.,” he said. “It has to be temporary. This has gone on far too long.”
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Trump probably could not refuse Mueller subpoena to answer questions
January 9, 2018 by admin
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WASHINGTON — If Robert Mueller seeks to question President Donald Trump, could the White House successfully refuse to make him available?
Like anyone whose testimony is sought by grand jury subpoena in a criminal case, the president could cite his Fifth Amendment right not to testify against himself. Such a move, however, would carry significant political risk.
Related: Talks underway about Trump interview in Mueller Russia probe
The White House has given no indication that the president would refuse to answer Mueller’s questions. Trump said in June that he was “100 percent” willing to give Mueller his version of events. “I’d be glad to,” the president said when asked at a news conference.
But suppose he changed his mind. Could he decline to respond to a subpoena from Mueller on some other grounds? The answer, in a word, seems to be no.
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The Supreme Court has never directly addressed the question about whether a president can refuse to cooperate in a criminal investigation potentially involving his own conduct. That’s because no president has ever fought such a request. But in two other cases, the court has suggested that there’s no authority to decline.
President Richard Nixon failed when he tried to shield his White House tapes from the Watergate prosecutor who wanted them as evidence in charging presidential aides with crimes related to the scandal. The court rejected Nixon’s claim that the recordings were protected by executive privilege.
“The President’s generalized assertion of privilege must yield to the demonstrated, specific need for evidence in a pending criminal trial and the fundamental demands of due process of law in the fair administration of criminal justice,” the court said in 1974.
Twenty-three years later, the Supreme Court ruled that President Bill Clinton was not immune from a lawsuit filed by Paula Jones, who accused him of sexual harassment.
It’s settled law, the court said, “that the President is subject to judicial process in appropriate circumstances.”
While that ruling involved a private civil case, the court said the need for evidence in a prosecution is even greater.
“We have made clear that in a criminal case the powerful interest in the ‘fair administration of criminal justice’ requires that the evidence be given under appropriate circumstances lest the ‘very integrity of the judicial system’ be eroded.”
Two former White House counsels, under Republican and Democratic presidents, agreed Trump would have no legal grounds, other than the Fifth Amendment, to reject a subpoena for his testimony. Both spoke on condition that they not be identified.
Clinton became the first sitting president ever questioned by prosecutors about his own conduct. In 1998 Kenneth Starr’s team asked him about his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky for nearly six hours in the Map Room, as a grand jury watched on a special video feed to the federal courthouse 10 blocks away.
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Starr’s team had earlier interviewed both the president and Hillary Clinton in 1995 about the Whitewater real estate matter, and they gave sworn testimony about Whitewater the year before to Robert Fiske, the special counsel who was initially appointed to investigate the issue.
Previous presidents have cooperated in criminal investigations while in office. Ronald Reagan answered written questions from the special counsel investigating the Iran-Contra scandal. Jimmy Carter gave four depositions in criminal cases unrelated to his own conduct. And Gerald Ford gave a videotaped deposition in the trial of a woman accused of trying to assassinate him.
A century earlier, President Ulysses Grant gave a long deposition in a criminal case, testifying for the defense in the Whiskey Ring scandal.
While it’s unlikely Trump could successfully refuse to answer Mueller’s questions if subpoenaed, how he does so would probably be negotiated. The special prosecutor might not be able to force him to appear on videotape for a deposition and might have to settle for written answers.
Mueller could try to summon the president to appear in court, though his lawyers could cite the Clinton precedent and seek to have the questioning done in the White House. In its ruling in the Clinton civil case, the Supreme Court said, “We assume that the testimony of the President, both for discovery and for use at trial, may be taken at the White House.” But that was a civil case with no grand jury.