By Jorge Rennella
The federal decision on January 8 to end the Provisional Residence Permit (Temporary Protected Status) for approximately 200,000 Salvadorans will affect restaurants disproportionately, restaurant owners say.
The decision gives the Salvadorans, who have lived in the country since 2001, a deadline of September 9, 2019, to obtain a new work permit, reorganize their situation, return to their country, or face deportation. The Temporary Protection Status (TPS) was granted following an earthquake that caused the loss of a high number of lives and heavy damage to the infrastructure and economy of El Salvador. The program allowed many Salvadorans to work and live legally in the United States.
“It is not a good decision taken by this government,” says Hilcia García, owner of El Salvador Restaurant, in Irving, Texas, which employs seven people. “They deserve another chance. I think, just as the situation in El Salvador is, it is inhumane to send all these people there, where there is no work, but a lot of violence. How will they live there? Here they already have their business, work, home, their life, everything.”
Sandra Chacón, a waitress at Salvadoreño 2 restaurant in Phoenix, Arizona, a restaurant with 50 percent Salvadoran clientele, echoes Garcia’s sentiments: “People who return to El Salvador will find themselves with a lack of employment and a lot of crime. The Salvadoran families here are hardworking, good, decent and it is convenient for the United States to have them. All Salvadoran people are surprised with this decision."
The change will make it harder to find employees here, García adds. “It is very difficult to get people to work in the restaurant, and this decision could cause us problems because the workforce is Salvadoran and our workers also know the food and culture. If an employee leaves, it will be difficult for us to find Salvadoran workers. However, we must take everything in stride. I do not know, maybe I could say that this is more political than anything else. In the end I hope, first of all, that they will end up creating a solution for the Salvadorans.”
García says she hopes the El Salvadoran government takes action. “The government of El Salvador should do something and negotiate, just as Mexico is doing with the wall, the treaty and the deportations of Mexicans; Mexico is negotiating; Mexico said that if the US does not cooperate, it would not help them control the migration that enters Mexico into the U.S. El Salvador should do the same and say: I do not help you control the flow of drugs that passes through El Salvador to the United States, if you do not help us,” García says.
"I do not think people want to go back, even if the permit expires. I think people are going to stay and they're going to live in the shadows and that's worse for them and for the US too. The people who have a TPS are the people who are working well, under the law, correctly, who generate economy and work in the United States. In many areas of Texas, 60 percent of the workers are Salvadorans, especially in clean-up jobs, where Anglos and African-Americans do not want to work,” García says.
The TPS permit is normally renewed every 18 months. The government says the measure to end the TPS for Salvadorans is taken based on the knowledge that the conditions in El Salvador, since the earthquake in 2001, have improved sufficiently to no longer deserve the special designation of TPS.
According to officials from the Department of National Security, 262,500 TPS permits were granted to Salvadorans, but recent estimates indicate that nearly 200,000 with this status currently reside in the United States. On the other hand, a statement from the US government indicates that 39,000 Salvadorans were deported in the last six years.
Other immigrant communities have already received their completion dates for their TPS: 60,000 Haitians who arrived in 2010 after the earthquake and 2,500 Nicaraguans protected in the wake of Hurricane Mitch in 1998 must leave in November. While 57,0000 Hondurans were recently granted a six-month extension for their TPS, the latter decision was made by the former Secretary, Elaine Duke.
Another difficult situation is that of the children born here. According to official sources there are approximately 190,000 children of Salvadoran parents with TPS born in the United States.
"The impact caused by this decision can now be felt, because in recent days sales have fallen,” says Julisa Pineda, a waitress at Salvadoreño restaurant 1, in Meza, Arizona. “I do not think it's easy, for people who come back, to start a business in El Salvador and succeed like here. Even so, with all that is happening, I tell people not to lose hope and that if God put them here it is for something.”
Jorge Rennella is part of the team that creates el Restaurante magazine and eMex newsletter.