Last October, the State Department advised the Trump administration against its decision to end temporary protection for immigrants from Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador, warning that the move could worsen attempts to combat gang violence and the illicit drug trade. This was revealed in documents made public on Wednesday.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s senior Democrat, Senator Robert Menendez, released the documents, which also warned that children who are US citizens could be forced to go to those countries with their parents, exposing them to dangerous situations. In a letter written on 31 October last year, Rex Tillerson, the then Secretary of State, told Elaine Duke, the then Acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, that those Central American nations were no longer eligible for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) due to improved conditions after the protective status triggered by environmental disasters.
Tillerson also pointed out that nations that lost the status could retaliate by reducing the help they give the US in fighting gang violence and illegal immigration. Menendez said that Tillerson made it clear there would be major repercussions for ending TPS for Honduras and El Salvador, but the Trump administration did so anyway.
TPS protects immigrants in the US, including undocumented immigrants, from deportation back to nations affected by problems such as civil conflicts and natural disasters. Around 300,000 people were protected by TPS when Donald Trump became President, but some countries have since had the status rescinded.