OPINION:
The Trump Administration’s decision to follow the law and bring to an end the seventeen year gift of legal status to hundreds of thousands of Salvadoran citizens who claimed to be refugees has been met with the typical hand-wringing and lamentations.
The revocation of Temporary Protective Status (TPS) for Salvadorans affected by an earthquake in 2001 was announced Monday by the Department of Homeland Security.
In most cases the TPS (again, the “T” stands for temporary) applied to aliens who were in this country illegally at the time of the earthquake. They were “living in the shadows” and subject to deportation if the federal government had any interest in enforcing our laws at that time. They just happened to win the “earthquake lottery.” The prize? protection from deportation and a work permit on a temporary basis.
Temporary, in this case, meant 18 months back in the innocent days of 2001. Every time that 18 month status was about to expire, President Bush and Obama after him extended the status. Now, 17 years later, the Salvadorans and the American Left have interpreted temporary to mean “permanent” and the protections these people enjoyed are no longer the generous gift it was meant to be, it is now an entitlement that dare not be revoked.
But it isn’t.
Temporary means temporary. When the temporary protective status was granted, as a benevolent gift, in 2001, it was never meant to last 17 years. And everyone knows that.
Illegal alien rights organizations have suggested that Trump actually accurately understanding the meaning of the word “temporary” is defying the long history of humanitarianism toward immigrants in the United States.
Trump is “heaping more misery on vulnerable immigrants” says the Washington Post. “Heartbreaking,” says the American Bishops. An “assault on humanitarian immigration” says pretty much every editorial page and Democrat to anyone still listening.
But one thing that hasn’t been heard over the wails of sorrow from the New York Times and the screams of “racist” from La Raza (oh wait, La Raza changed their name last year because they finally understood the irony of a group called “The Race” calling other people “racist”) is a simple and profound “thank you.”
Here’s what it should sound like:
“Thank you, America, for granting us temporary protective status back in 2001 when an earthquake struck in El Salvador when we were in the United States. Even though most of us had broken your immigration laws and entered your country illegally or over-stayed our visas when the earthquake happened. Nevertheless, your kind and generous president, George W. Bush, and the loving Republicans in congress decided to grant us temporary refugee status because our home country had been devastated.
“We had no idea that the temporary status would extend for 17 years. It has been amazing and kind for you to allow us to stay all these years. And now that we have to go home 18 months from now, we’d just like you to know how grateful we are. Again, thank you. “
Wouldn’t that be nice? We’d even grudgingly accept “gracias” if you must, but since you’ve been in America for nearly two decades, you should, at this point, be able to bring it in English.
Listen to Mark Kirkorian on The Larry O’Connor Show on WMAL discussing the Trump Administration’s policy on TPS:
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