Salvadorans living in Iowa brace for deportation orders

Maria Varahona is facing an uncertain future after the Trump administration announced Monday that it plans to end temporary legal immigration status for 200,000 Salvadorans who have been living in the U.S. for nearly two decades.

The 37-year-old has been living in Iowa since 1999. She's raised three children here and started two businesses in Des Moines: El Buen Sabor restaurant and the adjacent La Centroamericana grocery store.

"I'm most worried about my children. They will be affected most by this," Varahona said Wednesday inside her restaurant on the city's' east side. "My husband tells me not to worry. It'll be OK. But they're going to a country they don't know."

Salvadorans who have temporary protected status (TPS) must return to their homeland by September 2019 or become undocumented immigrants if they remain in the U.S. without legal protections.

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

There are an estimated 7,000 Salvadorans living in Iowa, according to a 2017 report from the Iowa State Data Center.

Most of Varahona's dedicated customers are Salvadoran.

"If we found a way to stay legally, what good will it do? All of our customers will be gone," she said.

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

Salvadorans were first granted TPS in 2001 after a pair of devastating earthquakes killed nearly 1,000 people and destroyed more than 100,000 homes in the Central American country.

It was never a permanent program that would lead to residency or U.S. citizenship. But presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama extended TPS protection for Salvadorans about every 18 months.

Their administrations said the country had not fully recovered from the earthquakes and also had raging violence from drug cartels that made it impossible for so many people to return to the unstable nation.

El Salvador is Central America's smallest and most densely populated country. It suffers from one of the world's highest homicide rates and the most pervasive criminal gangs, according to the Central Intelligence Agency.

With a population of 6.1 million, it closed out 2015 with 6,656 homicides, according to the Salvadoran newspaper El Heraldo. After a recent military crackdown on crime, that number dropped to 3,610 in 2017, the newspaper reported.

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.

The Salvadoran Embassy in Washington, D.C., estimates that 97 percent of Salvadorans on TPS over the age of 24 are employed and paying taxes, and more than half own their own homes. They have Social Security cards and pay around $495 for work permits and fingerprints to renew their status.

"I think people do miss the fact that this is not somebody who shows up from El Salvador, qualifies for TPS and they go straight to the government assistance line," said Pablo Ortega, director of the English language learners program at Des Moines Public Schools. "They have to be a productive citizen in our country."

Francisco Rodriguez, 46, left his home near the beach town of Cangrejera in El Salvador to move to the U.S. He has a job cutting foam used in construction at a plant in Des Moines and a home mortgage.

He said he doesn't know what he'll do if he's deported.

“I was accustomed to living there, but my town has grown and they don’t know me,” he said. “All of my family is in the United States.”

There are 236 Salvadoran-born students enrolled in Des Moines Public Schools, though it's unclear how many have temporary protected status, according to Phil Roeder, director of communications for the district.

Salvadorans on TPS have also given birth to 192,000 children, all U.S. citizens, according to a report from the Center for Migration Studies.

Rodriguez's three children attend Des Moines schools. His 6-year-old boy suffers from learning disabilities.

He said his children won't get the same quality education in his home country. And, he said, Salvadoran gangs target school children for recruitment.

"I can’t understate the amount of abject terror going through Salvadorans' minds right now," said Ann Naffier, an immigration attorney at the free legal clinic called Justice for our Neighbors in Des Moines.

Those with TPS have few legal options to stay in the U.S. other than marrying a citizen, Naffier said.

But most people who receive TPS protection were already in the U.S. illegally. And if you're undocumented for more than one year, you must return to your home country for a period of 10 years before you can become a permanent resident, she said.

“Many tell me it’s much worse now in El Salvador than it was during the civil wars” in the 1980s and '90s, Naffier said. Criminal gangs own neighborhoods and charge businesses fees; they attack members of the public, kidnap children and sexually abuse girls as part of gang initiation rights, she said.

“These aren’t the reasons TPS was given, but they are very good reasons why it’s very dangerous to be deported to El Salvador,” Naffier said.

The Trump administration has been phasing out temporary protected status granted to 437,000 people from 10 countries who have suffered from armed conflicts, earthquakes and other natural disasters, according to the Congressional Research Service.

It's likely one of the largest deportation orders in recent U.S. history, Naffier said.

In November, Homeland Security announced it was ending TPS for roughly 59,000 Haitians living legally in the U.S. since a powerful earthquake in 2010 decimated the country. They must return home by July 2019.

The department also eliminated TPS status for 5,300 Nicaraguans that was first granted in 1999 following the destruction left by Hurricane Mitch. They must leave by January 2019.

And while the department extended TPS for 86,000 Hondurans affected by Mitch for six more months, the administration indicated that they may ultimately be eliminated from the program.

Varahona said she and her family will fight to stay. Her husband, who also has TPS, is in the process of applying for permanent U.S. residency, she said.

"Everything will be OK. I might not have the option to stay in this country, but life goes on," Varahona said.

— USA Today reporter Alan Gomez contributed to this report.