On June 25, the Wilson Center held their First Annual Conference on Security, Migration, and the Rule of Law in the Northern Central American Triangle.
The conference’s purpose was to shed light and give further insight into the contexts the people of these countries face. Throughout the day, experts and civil specialist gave in-depth background information and data to base their claims.
The contamination of the police force, the unconscious systematic cycle of corruption, the complete disregard to the rule of law, and the inability to find leaders that are not incentivized or coerced into keeping this type of behavior a constant. All of these were common themes the panel expressed, highlighting how these impede these countries’, as well as the reasons that they have become a “migrant factory”.
Nearing the 2020 US presidential elections, it is important to point out one of the issues, which seemingly has flown under the radar of some: the TPS (Temporary Protected Status) expiration of countries such as El Salvador and Honduras on January 2020.
In May 2018, the Trump Administration decided to end TPS for Salvadorians and Hondurans. This decision is not unique. Even though TPS has been terminated in the past, it is the first time it happens to a program with the characteristics of these countries. These particular programs have been set up for a very long time and impact the lives of a significant portion of people, which is why the Trump administration has received so many backlashes for this decision.
Consequently, a federal court order from the Ramos v. Nielson case resulted in an injunction to extend the TPS expiration to January 2020. The Trump administration has appealed this decision in the 9th District circuit court of appeals and it is only a matter of time before the Supreme Court hears this case. Taking this into account, there is a lot of uncertainty for the families that have been granted TPS and lived in the US for so long and have no intentions of returning voluntarily.
Before outlining the major points that had to be addressed, the panelists took the time of showing the demographic background of the people who receive TPS, in conjunction with presenting some key economic metrics in order to provide a bigger picture of how this could affect the lives of these recipients.
After presenting this evidence the panelists focused on the two most important issues that need immediate attention: The lack of infrastructure and investment that these countries have to attend the needs of the returning recipients, and the huge economic impact that this decision would cause on the economy of Honduras and El Salvador, respectively.
A lack of infrastructure from these countries should not be a surprise. In the case of Honduras, you have a narco-state that has stolen and mismanaged all government funds in the Hernandez presidency. For example, the Honduran 2019 government budget, which amounts to roughly ten billion dollars, only allocates eight million to services such as advisory services, professional reintegration, youth services, and attention centers (according to FOSDEH).
However, El Salvador will suffer the most from this infrastructure weakness. According to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, there are 57 thousand TPS beneficiaries from Hondurans and 250 thousand from El Salvador. This means that, should the TPS be terminated, El Salvador could expect a massive influx of people, making the government wary of how they should allocate more resources to this upcoming flow of people. Fortunately, there is hope that the newly elected government of Najib Bukele will grant proper resources to alleviate this matter.
The second issue is the economic implications that a possible TPS termination entails for both countries. With the return of thousands of its diaspora, El Salvador and Honduras would both lose a big share of remittances, which amount to 20-24% of these countries’ GDP.
In the case of Honduras, remittances are the balancing factor of their current account deficit. They provide a large amount of spending and saving power for families living in the country; otherwise, indicators such as education, poverty, and healthcare would be considerably lower.
Nevertheless, it is important to note that the group responsible for the better part of these remittances is not TPS recipients. In fact, this group comprises of Hondurans that are undocumented and do not have any legal status. Knowing this, we could raise the question: if Hondurans who are TPS recipients will be deported, will there be greater efforts in place to deport other undocumented Hondurans?
Unlike Honduras, El Salvador’s remittances mostly come from the TPS recipients that reside in the US. This presents a major concern for the Salvadorian economy and something that might call the attention to the US government to step back and realize that the effects of this TPS removal might cause even greater challenges within El Salvador, causing a greater amount of people to flee the country.
It is easy to make decisions that would change the short-term landscape of the United States and their immigration problems, but believing that these decisions would even come close to fixing recurrent issues at the US border is misguided.
The US and regional actors have to step up and hold the governments of Honduras and El Salvador accountable to manage their budget in a way that helps this cause. Furthermore, if there is a call for keeping these families from leaving the US, the governments of these countries have to cooperate as well. Once that is done, hopefully the US can realize the potential ramifications of not letting the TPS recipients stay in the country and even facilitate their the path towards citizenship.
These countries need stability, growth, and work. By rejecting the realities of their situations there is no pathway to solving the problems that the US government wants to fix. Accepting that the countries need the remittances to balance their economies provides a foundation to further improve the countries’ individual conditions. However, if those foundations are further destabilized, the task will even be greater to overcome, and then the pill will be even harder to swallow.