Waynesboro shop owner from El Salvador grapples with future after Trump TPS decision

WAYNESBORO - Monday turned out to be a rough birthday for Gio Castro Hernandez, owner of Gio's Treasures and the Little Gio's food truck in Waynesboro.

On the day he turned 35, Castro Hernandez found out that after 20-plus years building a life in the United States, that he must move back to his home country of El Salvador by September of 2019 or face becoming an undocumented immigrant here.

That fate was decided after the Trump administration ended temporary legal immigration status for 200,000 Salvadorans who have been living in the U.S. for nearly two decades. Their temporary protected status (TPS) was first granted in 2001 after a pair of devastating earthquakes that killed nearly 1,000 people and destroyed more than 100,000 homes in the Central American country.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen concluded that El Salvador has rebuilt and recovered enough so the emergency declaration is no longer necessary.

"The substantial disruption of living conditions caused by the earthquake" no longer exists, Homeland Security said in a statement.

More: Trump orders 200,000 Salvadorans to leave U.S.

Unless something changes with that decision, Castro Hernandez said he plans to go back to his home country, a place he hasn't set foot in since he first left in 1997 at age 13. His parents still live in their isolated rural town situated in mountainous terrain close to the border with Honduras, he said.

That's a worrying thought, Castro Hernandez said, given the widespread violence that still plagues the country, and it's been at the back of his mind for years.

"I don't think it's safe for anyone to live there," he said.

That would include his 4-year-old son, Owen, who was born in the U.S. and was getting ready for registration at Wayne Hills Elementary School. Castro Hernandez had dreamed of Owen becoming a Virginia State Police trooper.

"I always want him to help people," he said.

More: From Sudan to Waynesboro, nowhere to call 'home'

Castro Hernandez is also sad about what this will mean for the life he's made in the Waynesboro community, where he's lived since 2009 after moving down from Harrisonburg. He loves running Gio's Treasures, which he opened in 2012, and the Little Gio's food truck out front, with the help of his two younger brothers, Dani and Will.

He's worked five years straight without a day off because he loves running his business and interacting with people in Waynesboro — he feels like he belongs here, he said, not back in Central America.

"If I go over there, I don't have no clue what I'm going to do," he said.

He's hoping you'll send him a letter if you want, describing what he and his business have meant to the Waynesboro community. Gio's Treasures is located at 305 E. Main St., Waynesboro, VA 22980.

The Trump administration has now terminated TPS status for four countries — El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua and Sudan. Ten nations were in the program when President Trump took office a year ago.

The latest decision runs counter to those made by Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, who extended TPS protections for El Salvador every 18 months. Their administrations said the country had not fully recovered from the quakes and also had raging violence from drug cartels that made it impossible for so many people to return to the unstable nation.

More: Nearly 100 refugees have resettled peacefully in Augusta County since ‘02

Homeland Security said Monday that its decision was based on recovery from the earthquakes and not on the current state of gang violence in El Salvador.

El Salvador's embassy in Washington estimates that 97% of Salvadorans on TPS over age 24 are employed and pay taxes, and more than half own their homes. Salvadorans on TPS have also given birth to 192,000 children, all U.S. citizens, according to the Center for Migration Studies.

Alan Gomez, of USA TODAY, contributed to this report.