Extend Temporary Protected Status for Salvadorans

Floor Speech

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Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, in Maryland's beautiful Eighth Congressional District, Montgomery County, Maryland, something shocking is about to happen.

In 1 week, tens of thousands of people in our community will lose their Salvadoran temporary protected status. They will lose their work authorizations, and many will lose the careers that they have worked hard to build here, packing up whatever belongings they can fit into a couple of suitcases. They may be separated from the rest of their families and forced to return to a country where they will face violence and human rights violations. Their departure will create great dislocation and heartbreak in many neighborhoods.

For the past 25 years, Salvadoran TPS holders have raised their families here and sent their kids to our schools, started small businesses, and added to the vibrant culture of Maryland's Eighth District.

They have believed in America, and they form an essential part now of our communities. The Free State is the third-largest population of Salvadoran TPS holders in America. Every year, the 23,000 of them who call our State home contribute an estimated $732 million to our community. They have been a powerful driver of our prosperity.

One of my Salvadoran constituents who obtained TPS and arrived in Maryland when she was just a baby has built an outstanding career here as an educator at an elementary school where she herself went to school in the only State and in the only country she has ever known.

As a product of Montgomery County Public Schools, she is proud to give back to the community that helped her family establish a life in the United States. She hopes to keep educating the next generation of leaders. Yet the looming end of TPS next week threatens to strip her away from her students. The abrupt revocation of her status also threatens to separate her from her U.S. citizen spouse.

Another constituent also arrived in Maryland as a child. After escaping brutal poverty in El Salvador, she went on to achieve success by providing professional cleaning services to households throughout our community. She has been an active member of her local church and congregation. With her TPS designation now in question, she worries about having to abandon her livelihood, her family, and the community she loves. She does not know what the future holds.

Other hardworking Salvadorans have played an important role in the growth of one of Montgomery County's finest paint manufacturing companies. In their many years working for the company, these constituents have made impressive use of their work authorizations.

They manage business affairs for the company, test its new paint formulas, and efficiently facilitate the delivery of products to doorsteps across our community.

These neighbors have enriched the social, economic, and cultural life of our State. Their loss will be felt in classrooms left without teachers, unbuilt houses, renovations unfinished, landscaping projects abandoned, friendships severed, and families deprived of breadwinners and loved ones.

The Trump administration, if you are listening, please extend this vital program. Do not turn a blind eye to what is taking place. America has always served as an asylum for humanity. As Tom Paine said, it is a place of refuge for hardworking people fleeing economic, intellectual, political, religious repression and poverty from all over the world.

The administration should extend TPS and assure Salvadorans of their place in our community.

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