America's Role in El Salvador's Deterioration
When Donald Trump said this month he would end temporary protected status for almost 200,000 Salvadorans, the number of immigrants standing to lose protections under this president approached the 1 million mark. This includes people, like those from El Salvador, that now stand to be deported to countries where their lives could be in danger. El Salvador has one of the world’s highest homicide rates—due in no small part to the policies of the country now trying to expel them.
Trump promised to end the protected status granted to Salvadorans in 2001 following a devastating earthquake. Then, a few days later, during) countries. Unwilling to explicitly criticize the president for his intemperate remarks, Senator Marco Rubio expressed pity for the poor nation: “[T]he people of El Salvador and Haiti have suffered as the result of bad leaders, rampant crime and natural disasters.” Rubio omitted to note that one of the biggest disasters to befall El Salvador—one that created hundreds of thousands of refugees even before the post-earthquake wave—was man-made, with the United States, not nature, being a major force.
