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Immigration Agents Target 7-Eleven Stores in Push to Punish Employers
In a statement, 7-Eleven Inc., which is based in Irving, Tex., distanced itself from its franchisees, saying they were independent business owners who “are solely responsible for their employees, including deciding who to hire and verifying their eligibility to work in the United States.”
“7-Eleven takes compliance with immigration laws seriously and has terminated the franchise agreements of franchisees convicted of violating these laws,” the company said.
If ICE hoped to make a bold statement, it could hardly pick a more iconic target than 7-Eleven, a chain known for its ubiquitous stores that are open all the time and sell the much-loved Slurpees and Big Gulps. Many a franchise has been a steppingstone for new, legal immigrants who want to own and run their own small businesses.
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Not all franchisees have been scrupulous about whom they hire. ICE called its Wednesday sweep a “follow-up” of a 2013 investigation that resulted in the arrests of nine 7-Eleven franchise owners and managers on Long Island and in Virginia on charges of employing undocumented workers. Several have pleaded guilty and forfeited their franchises, and were ordered to pay millions in back wages owed to the workers.
“This definitely sends a message to employers,” said Ira Mehlman, the spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which favors more limits on immigration and stricter enforcement.
According to ICE, federal agents served inspection notices to 7-Eleven franchises in California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington and Washington, D.C.
Under President George W. Bush, ICE tended to make deportation arrests at worksites the government had reason to believe hired undocumented workers. The agency under President Barack Obama performed more inspections of the I-9 forms employers are required to fill out and keep to verify their workers’ eligibility.
One of the biggest workplace immigration raids, in July 2008, resulted in the detention of nearly 400 undocumented immigrants, including several children, at an Iowa meatpacking plant. Sholom Rubashkin, the chief executive of the Agriprocessors plant, then the largest kosher meatpacking operation in the country, was eventually convicted of bank fraud in federal court.
President Trump commuted Mr. Rubashkin’s 27-year prison sentence last month, after years of lobbying by a number of prominent lawyers and politicians who considered his term unduly harsh, and perhaps even anti-Semitic.
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Death toll rises to 15 in Montecito; 100 homes destroyed by mudslides
The death toll from a massive debris flow that buried homes and cars under a torrent of mud and boulders rose to 15 in Montecito, where local personnel and the U.S. Coast Guard continued rescue operations Wednesday morning.
About 300 people remained stuck in their homes in Montecito’s Romero Canyon neighborhood and throughout the debris field, where authorities launched helicopter rescues at daybreak.
The mudslides began around 2:30 a.m. Tuesday, when intense rains dislodged boulders and caused heavy mudflow along hillsides that were scarred by the sprawling Thomas fire late last year. A number of homes were ripped from their foundations, with some pulled more than a half-mile by water and mud before they broke apart.
“It looked like a World War I battlefield,” Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said Tuesday.
The death toll rose to 15 overnight, according to Amber Anderson, a public information officer for the multi-agency response to the disaster. At least 28 others had been reported injured, and 24 more are missing, she said. Approximately 100 homes were destroyed and 300 were damaged in the mudslide, according to Anderson. Eight commercial properties were also destroyed, she said.
Officials have yet to publicly identify any of those killed in the mudslides. Mike Eliason, public information officer for the Santa Barbara County Fire Department, said there were juveniles among the deceased.
With much of the area still inaccessible, officials have said they fear the number of people killed in the mudslides could rise.
PHOTOS | Thousands evacuated as first major rainstorm in a year hits Southern California »
Southern California was drenched Tuesday, but nowhere did the rainstorm inflict more pain than in Montecito, just weeks after the coastal community dealt with the devastating Thomas fire.
Some 500 firefighters from across the state rushed to help, with crews struggling through clogged roads, waist-deep mud and downed trees throughout the day in search of victims. Dozens of survivors were hoisted to safety in helicopters.
The rain overwhelmed the south-facing slopes above Montecito, flooding the creek and sending mud and boulders into residential neighborhoods, officials said.
On Wednesday morning, the noise of construction crews using bulldozers to move boulders and fallen trees along Sycamore Canyon Road and Hot Springs road echoed down empty streets. Thick mud and downed power lines filled the streets. As the rescue crews tried to open pathways, some residents walked through the mud hoping to aid in the search for missing relatives and friends.
With a shovel in one hand, a man who asked to be identified only as Mikey smoked a cigarette and then started shoveling mud and debris from the intersection.
He had been out since 5 a.m looking for his girlfriend’s missing sisters: Morgan and Sawyer Corey. He said their house, located roughly a half mile away in Sycamore Canyon Road, had been swept away.
“They are good people,” he said with tears in his eyes. “I’m hoping to find them.”
As he waded through deep mud, Montecito resident Ben Ekler said his friend’s mother and two children were swept away during Tuesday morning’s deluge. The mother and one of the children were found and are recovering at an area hospital, he said.
But the other child is still missing.
At least 7,000 people have been evacuated from the area. As part of ongoing rescue efforts, a “public safety exclusion zone” has been established in Montecito.
Residents in areas west of Sheffield Drive, East Valley Road and Ladera Lane, east of Olive Mill and Hot Springs Road, north of the ocean, and south of the U.S. Forest Service boundary are being asked to shelter in place and not move around the area. The move is designed to ease the task faced by rescue personnel, and those spotted in the area without approval could face arrest, authorities said.
A number of helicopter rescues are planned Wednesday in Romero Canyon, an area where about 300 people remain trapped in their homes. Rescue officials do not believe the people stuck there are injured, but the mudslides have made the area inaccessible by ground.
“So far there isn’t a concern about anybody being in any potential danger in that area,” said Rosie Narez, a spokeswoman for the multi-agency storm response. “There’s no way in or out, so I mean, at some point … you’re going to run out of stuff, so you’re going to need help.”
Wednesday’s rescue efforts will focus on the aerial evacuation of those trapped in Romero Canyon, as well as clearing mud-caked roadways so emergency personnel can access homes that were hit hard by the debris flow, according to Eliason.
Helicopters and rescue workers from the U.S. Coast Guard and National Guard, as well as firefighters and helicopters from fire departments in Los Angeles, Orange and Ventura counties have all descended on Montecito, Eliason said.
An airship with night-vision capabilities hovered over the damaged area through the early morning hours. With the rain stopped, Eliason said rescue crews remain hopeful they can soon reach others who are trapped.
“The weather was favorable. Search and rescue is still very confident that we’re still in that window for rescue mode,” he said. “We’re actively pursuing trying to get in there as quick as we can to get those people to safety.”
Deadly flooding on Santa Barbara coast as fire turns to mud »
Rescuing those trapped in Romero Canyon and reaching other homes that were made inaccessible by the mudslides remains a priority, he said, because many of those people could be without crucial supplies.
“A majority of Montecito and that whole area is in the Stone Age right now,” Eliason said. “There is no water. There is no gas. There is no electricity.”
The storm system that hit Southern California beginning Monday dumped more than 5 inches of rain on some parts of Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, and officials had been concerned that sections of the state damaged by last month’s wildfires would be susceptible to heavy mudflows. Soil scorched by fire is less able to absorb water.
Mudflows washed out a nearly 30-mile stretch of the 101 Freeway between Santa Barbara and Ventura, and also prompted evacuations in parts of Burbank and Los Angeles on Tuesday. The heavy weather also caused a surge in motor vehicle accidents across the Southland, according to the California Highway Patrol.
But Santa Barbara County clearly took the brunt of the damage, where mud, boulders, husks of cars and housing frames were common sights. The section of Montecito that was hit hardest was actually south of the Thomas fire’s burn scar, and not subject to mandatory evacuation, according to Eliason.
But a creek that feeds the Pacific Ocean swelled early Tuesday morning, raining boulders and flood waters onto residents as they slept.
The rains were like a starter’s gun for many in Montecito and nearby Carpinteria. Peter Lapidus said the sound of droplets pummeling his home forced him out of bed around 4 a.m. Tuesday.
“It was like a bomb went off,” he said. “It wasn’t raining hard, and then it was like you flipped a switch.”
Maude Feil, who was traversing the mud on Olive Mill Road with a walking stick Wednesday morning, said the area looked “like an apocalypse happened” when she first emerged from her home the day before.
As she walked, she made a grim discovery when she spotted what she thought was a mannequin beneath railroad tricks
“It was a woman’s body,” she said.
Feil had to evacuate during the Thomas fire, and said she was worried survivors who managed to get through the wildfire unscathed may have lost everything they own in Tuesday’s debris flow
“I’ve never been so close to a fire in my whole entire life, then this,” she said. “People who didn’t lose their house in the fire — they just lost huge things in the mud. It’s like a war zone or something.”
Etehad and Mejia reported from Montecito. Queally reported from Los Angeles. Times Staff Writers Joseph Serna, Alene Tchhekmedyian and Hailey Branson-Potts contributed to this report.
james.queally@latimes.com
brittny.mejia@latimes.com
melissa.etehad@latimes.com
Follow @JamesQueallyLAT @brittny_mejia @melissaetehad for breaking news in California.
UPDATES:
1:30 p.m.: This post was updated with additional information about the number of people injured and the number of buildings that were damaged or destroyed in the mudslide.
9:10 a.m.: This post was updated with comments from Montecito residents searching for missing relatives and friends.
8:30 a.m.: This post was updated with the number of people missing and injured and additional details about rescue efforts.
7:55 a.m.: This post was updated with details on the public safety exclusion zone.
This article was originally published at 6:55 a.m.
Trump: ‘Seems unlikely’ I’ll need to speak with Mueller
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Wednesday it “seems unlikely” that he’ll have to meet with special counsel Robert Mueller about the investigation into allegations that Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 election, repeatedly insisting there was “no collusion.”
“When they have no collusion … it seems unlikely that you’d even have an interview,” Trump said during a news conference at the White House in which he called the Russia investigation a “Democratic hoax.”
As far as any potential interview with Mueller, Trump left things vague, saying “certainly, we’ll see what happens,” while suggesting that it might not be necessary.
“There is collusion, but it’s really with the Democrats and the Russians,” Trump said, telling reporters “the witch hunt continues.”
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The president’s comments Wednesday were a departure from his previously expressed willingness to meet with the special counsel. In June 2017, Trump said he was “100 percent” willing to testify under oath about his conversations with former FBI Director James Comey. The circumstances around Trump’s unexpected firing of Comey are among the topics being focused on by Mueller’s team, who could be looking into whether Trump obstructed justice in his firing of Comey.
But asked by a reporter Saturday at Camp David if he was still open to speaking with Mueller, Trump demurred, first saying “yeah,” but not committing to an interview.
“There’s been no collusion, there’s been no crime, and in theory everybody tells me I’m not under investigation,” he told reporters. “Maybe Hillary [Clinton] is, I don’t know, but I’m not,” he said. “But we have been very open. We could have done it two ways. We could have been very closed, and it would have taken years. But you know, sort of like when you’ve done nothing wrong, let’s be open and get it over with.”
Sources familiar with the matter previously told NBC News that Trump’s legal team was preparing for the possibility off an interview with Mueller’s team, including the possibility of written responses to questions in lieu of a formal sit-down.
Later in the news conference, Trump told reporters he thought it was “better to work with Russia” on matters of international importance — like North Korea — but said that his actions on energy development, as well as rebuilding the military, weren’t policies that would earn him any praise from the Kremlin.
“(Russia President Vladimir) Putin can’t love that,” Trump said.
The Russia investigation has hovered over the administration as Trump continues to try to tackle complex domestic issues, specifically immigration reform that both addresses the legal status of those covered by an Obama-era immigration policy allowing people brought to the United States illegally as children to remain in the country (known as Dreamers), as well as funding for his long-promised border wall.
Any deal on immigration “has to include the wall,” Trump said Wednesday, “because without the wall, it all doesn’t work.” The wall, he continued, was necessary for security, safety and stopping drugs from coming into the United States.
One day earlier Trump seemed open to a “clean” deal on Dreamers when it was proposed by Democrats during a bipartisan meeting, but at the time it was unclear whether a clean deal meant the wall in addition to a solution for Dreamers.
House GOP presses harder-line Goodlatte immigration bill
GOP support is building for an immigration bill authored by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob GoodlatteRobert (Bob) William GoodlatteRosenstein to testify before House Judiciary Committee next week Conservative pressure on Sessions grows Clock ticking down on NSA surveillance powers MORE (R-Va.) as House Republicans seek to avoid getting jammed by the White House and Senate.
The Goodlatte bill would call for more aggressive enforcement measures and would address thousands of young undocumented immigrants whose fate has been in limbo for months.
The stand-alone legislation, which Goodlatte plans to unveil Wednesday, is backed by Speaker Paul RyanPaul Davis RyanMcConnell names Senate GOP tax conferees House Republican: ‘I worry about both sides’ of the aisle on DACA Overnight Health Care: 3.6M signed up for ObamaCare in first month | Ryan pledges ‘entitlement reform’ next year | Dems push for more money to fight opioids MORE’s leadership team.
It has attracted support from both the moderate and conservative wings of the 239-member House Republican Conference, including centrist Rep. Martha McSallyMartha Elizabeth McSallyHouse Dems highlight promising new candidates Trump poised for a September fight over border wall GOP rep weighs in on House dress code during floor speech MORE (Ariz.) and the Freedom Caucus’s Rep. Raúl Labrador (Idaho).
There are doubts, however, that it could clear the Senate, senior lawmakers said.
The White House and congressional leaders have been scrambling to figure out a solution for recipients of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which Trump is ending in March. Democrats are demanding protections from young immigrants enrolled in the program, but Republicans want to beef up border security and tackle other immigration issues in exchange for any DACA deal.
At a White House meeting with GOP and Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday, Trump appeared eager to strike a broader immigration deal. He proposed a two-step agreement where Congress would pass a major overhaul of the immigration system after dealing with the DACA recipients and securing the border.
“If you want to take it that further step, I’ll take the heat,” Trump told lawmakers. “You are not that far away from comprehensive immigration reform.”
In an interview, Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark MeadowsMark Randall MeadowsTrump rips Dems a day ahead of key White House meeting Overnight Health Care: 3.6M signed up for ObamaCare in first month | Ryan pledges ‘entitlement reform’ next year | Dems push for more money to fight opioids Overnight Finance: Trump says shutdown ‘could happen’ | Ryan, conservatives inch closer to spending deal | Senate approves motion to go to tax conference | Ryan promises ‘entitlement reform’ in 2018 MORE (R-N.C.) said Tuesday he’s “inclined” to back the Goodlatte bill based on what he’s heard so far.
“I am very supportive of the work that Chairman Goodlatte has put forth in designing a bill to address the broader immigration issues we are facing,” said Meadows, who has not seen the final text yet. “I am inclined to support it based on the overview I have been briefed on.”
Goodlatte pitched his legislation during a GOP conference meeting Tuesday morning ahead of a bipartisan meeting at the White House aimed at hashing out a DACA solution.
The Judiciary chairman also took part in Tuesday’s White House meeting in which Trump and lawmakers agreed to limit future talks to four issues: shielding the young immigrant “Dreamers” from deportation, border security, chain migration and the visa lottery.
“Addressing these four issues — border security, the visa lottery, chain migration, and then something for DACA recipients — is a great first step,” Goodlatte told reporters as he returned to the Capitol. “I think there are a lot of other things that need to be done on immigration.”
While Goodlatte’s bill is expected to include those four categories, the chairman and others indicated that the House measure is expected to be more expansive by reflecting other conservative priorities. It is likely to include mandatory verification requirements for workers, known as E-Verify, according to CNN.
“That bill has some of those things, but has a lot more. That’s a lot bigger,” said Rep. Mario Diaz-BalartMario Rafael Diaz-BalartLawmakers call on Treasury to take tougher stance on Hamas in Qatar Congress barreling toward explosive immigration fight Future of DACA up in the air as deadline looms MORE (R-Fla.), who also attended the White House meeting.
Supporters of Goodlatte’s bill argue that it could garner 218 Republican votes in the House, which could help them avoid getting jammed with an unpopular immigration deal from the Senate.
“What we don’t want to take place is to get jammed by some Dreamer Act bill from the Senate, which some of us are concerned about,” said Rep. Mark WalkerBradley (Mark) Mark WalkerRight scrambles GOP budget strategy Conservative lawmakers met to discuss GOP chairman’s ouster Overnight Finance: GOP delays work on funding bill amid conservative demands | Senate panel approves Fed nominee Powell | Dodd-Frank rollback advances | WH disputes report Mueller subpoenaed Trump bank records MORE (R-N.C.), chairman of the Republican Study Committee. “We hope that [Trump] supports what Goodlatte and people come up with.”
Trump did not take a position on Goodlatte’s proposal, though he called it a “good starting point” on Tuesday and insisted any legislation should be a “bill of love.”
But House GOP leadership has not yet committed to bringing the chairman’s bill to the floor.
“For whatever reason, there seems to be a little bit of internal debate over where that gets to the floor,” Walker said. “Leadership, they’re keeping their cards close to the vest.”
He added, however, that no one spoke out against the legislation during the conference meeting.
Other Republicans were far more skeptical that a Goodlatte bill could garner 218 GOP votes in the House — or that such a measure could pass the Senate, where nine Democrats are needed to overcome a filibuster.
“Even if we did have 218 Republican votes for a DACA bill, it’s not going to be close to what the Senate passes. … We need to pass a DACA bill with over 300 votes,” said Rep. Charlie DentCharles(Charlie) Wieder DentJuan Williams: The GOP has divided America Republicans pursue two-week spending bill GOP could punt funding fight to January MORE (R-Pa.), co-chairman of the moderate Tuesday Group.
“We we can go through this exercise for a while, until we ultimately get jammed by the Senate. We’ll indulge all these folks with this fanciful notion that we’ll somehow pass a DACA bill with 218 Republican votes — and then unicorns fly.”
6 killed in Southern California deluge as rivers of mud wipe out homes
Heavy rains make Southern California vulnerable to flooding and debris flows, especially after fires that strip steep hillsides of vegetation.
Mudflows, mudslides and landslides often are used interchangeably when disaster strikes, but the terms have distinctions.
A mudflow is “a river of liquid and flowing mud on the surfaces of normally dry land areas,” according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“Other earth movements, such as landslide, slope failure or a saturated soil mass moving by liquidity down a slope, are not mudflows,” it says.
FEMA sees a mudflow as similar to a milkshake, while the more solid mudslide is comparable to a cake.
The US Geological Survey dismisses mudslide as an “imprecise but popular term … frequently used by laymen and the news media to describe a wide scope of events, ranging from debris-laden floods to landslides.”
A landslide occurs when soil or rock moves downhill, usually due to gravity, but erosion, heavy rains and earthquakes can contribute to landslides.
Sources: FEMA, US Geological Survey
Steve Bannon to Step Down From Breitbart Post
Though he was virtually unknown outside of his work at Breitbart, Mr. Bannon was named chief executive of the Trump campaign two and a half months before Election Day. And he helped instill the discipline and focus that allowed Mr. Trump to narrowly prevail in the three Midwestern states that gave him victory in the Electoral College.
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He accompanied Mr. Trump to the White House and became his chief strategist. With an office in the West Wing and a direct line to the Oval Office — he reported to no one but the president initially — he seemed well positioned to wreak havoc on the political institutions and leaders he railed against as too corrupt and self-serving.
But after repeated clashing with Ivanka Trump, the president’s elder daughter, and Jared Kushner, her husband and Mr. Trump’s senior adviser, Mr. Bannon was pushed out after less than eight months with the administration.
No one has been more closely identified with the Breitbart website or had more to do with emboldening its defiant editorial spirit than Mr. Bannon did after its namesake, Andrew Breitbart, died of a heart attack in 2012. In Washington, Mr. Bannon works and lives part time in a townhouse nicknamed the Breitbart Embassy.
Once outside the administration and free to pursue his political enemies, Mr. Bannon set out on an audacious mission to challenge Republican incumbents he deemed insufficiently loyal to Mr. Trump’s agenda. He vowed to replace Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, and started backing far-right candidates, some with questionable backgrounds and losing track records at the polls.
His full-throated, unfailing support of Roy S. Moore in Alabama even after allegations surfaced that the former judge preyed on women as young as 14, ended in an embarrassing setback: Democrats took the Senate seat for the first time in a generation.
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Reporter found after going missing in Houston
Police found a sports reporter Monday morning who had gone missing in the Houston area. CBS affiliate KHOU reports that police found 29-year-old Courtney Roland’s Jeep Cherokee near the Galleria mall just after midnight on Sunday.
Police said on Twitter Monday morning that she was found in the same area and appeared to be unharmed but was taken to a hospital to be evaluated.
At a press conference Monday afternoon, police said they believe Roland became confused from a reaction to medication she was taking. She received no injuries beyond bumps and bruises, but she doesn’t remember everything that happened to her. Investigators don’t suspect there was any foul play.
A passer-by who had seen news coverage of her disappearance called police at around 8:15 a.m., saying he had seen her walking under an overpass, the police said. Officers caught up with her and were able to confirm her identity. Even though she was in a confused state, she knew who she was.
Police say the Rivals.com Texas AM reporter’s phone was found inside the vehicle. Her purse with an iPad, computer and credit cards were also all found intact somewhere inside the Galleria.
KHOU-TV reports that Roland, who last seen wearing a camouflage fleece sweater and an orange hat, was last heard from Saturday around 4 p.m. She texted a roommate, telling her a suspicious man at a Walgreens was following her. The man followed her in a blue truck all the way home, but then he allegedly drove off when she got out.
The roommate was supposed to meet up with Roland but she never showed up, the station reported.
Roland’s parents pleaded for information.
“If somebody has her, we just want to tell them that we love you too. And I know Courtney would be praying for you because that’s the way she was. She cared about other people,” said dad Steve Roland.
Lindsey Graham takes a dig at Trump over ‘genius’ claim
Sen. Lindsey Graham took a dig at President Donald Trump during an appearance on “The View” today, saying that the reason why Trump calls himself smart is “if he doesn’t call himself a genius nobody else will.”
The comment came when Graham, R-S.C., was asked if he thinks Trump is “like, really smart,” as the president called himself on Twitter this weekend.
Graham went on to qualify his response, noting that he has had some harsh words for Trump in the past, including during the campaign when they were competitors.
“You can say anything you want to say about the guy, I said he was a xenophobic, race-baiting, religious bigot — I ran out of things to say!
“He won. Guess what: He’s our president,” Graham said.
During the interview, Graham repeatedly defended special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion by Trump associates.
“I think he’s the right guy at the right time,” the senator said of Mueller. “Let Mr. Mueller do his job and make sure next time we defend ourselves against the Russians.”
When asked about the meeting with a Russian lawyer that Donald Trump Jr. had in Trump Tower during the campaign, which former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon was quoted as calling “treasonous” in a new book, Graham said the meeting itself wasn’t illegal.
“That’s a dumb meeting. I wouldn’t have took it,” Graham said. But, he added, “That’s not a crime. The crime would be taking something of value from a foreign government.”
He added, “We have yet to find out if they [Trump Jr. and others] took up” the offer by the Russian lawyer to give information to help the Trump campaign.
ABCThe South Carolina senator also dismissed criticism of Mueller by some Republicans.
“The View” co-host Joy Behar said, “It seems as though there’s drumbeat from some in your party trying to discredit Mueller to bring him down.”
Graham responded, “That happened with Ken Starr,” the prosecutor who investigated then-President Bill Clinton in the 1990s. “That’s the way the game is played.”
“There’s reason to look at what Russia did,” Graham added, noting that although it was the Democratic National Committee’s emails that were hacked and leaked in the 2016 election, the Republican Party could be targeted in the future.
“In a democracy, if you don’t have each other’s backs in stuff like this, then you lose control of democracy,” he said.
Graham is close with “The View” co-host Meghan McCain because of his longtime friendship with her father, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
At the beginning of the interview, Graham shared a story of how Meghan McCain helped point her father in the right direction when he faced a decision during his 2008 presidential bid. Graham said that the McCain campaign debated whether or not to “go after” then-candidate Sen. Barack Obama for controversial comments made by his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
“Meghan said, ‘Dad, don’t do it. It’s not right,’ and all the smart people shut up, and John said ‘Yeah, you’re right Meghan,” Graham said.
“She was brave enough to say something,” Graham said.
ABC News’ Allie Yang contributed to this report.
Salvadorans fear TPS decision will be a huge economic blow to their country
MEXICO CITY — The Trump administration’s decision to eliminate residency permits for some 200,000 Salvadoran migrants could cause far-reaching disruptions in the small Central American country, including a steep decline in remittances from abroad and a destabilizing wave of returning citizens to a homeland still racked by violence, according to immigration experts and Salvadoran officials.
Monday’s decision could result in the deportation of Salvadorans who have lived in the United States for decades, whose children are U.S. citizens and who send home billions of dollars a year to relatives in El Salvador. They would be returning to a country that has had one of the highest murder rates in the world in recent years, as well as a rampant gang problem.
[200,000 Salvadorans may be forced to leave the U.S. as Trump ends immigration protection]
The Salvadoran government has lobbied the Trump administration for months to find a solution that would allow these people to stay in the United States, rather than end the Temporary Protected Status program, or TPS, that has been in effect since 2001. Over the weekend, El Salvador’s Foreign Ministry continued tweeting about the benefits that Salvadorans bring to the U.S. economy and culture, saying that 95 percent of Salvadorans in the program are employed or own their own businesses.
The Salvadorans with TPS status “have become important members of their communities in the United States, and their contributions are key to the development of that nation,” the ministry wrote Sunday on Twitter.
El Salvador’s foreign minister, Hugo Martínez, said the government will use the next 18 months, before the program expires, to lobby Washington for a permanent solution by Congress to avoid deportation.
“We have in the immediate future a great challenge,” Martínez said at a news conference Monday alongside U.S. Ambassador Jean Manes.
Manes said the TPS population represents 12 percent of the Salvadorans living in the United States. Speaking in Spanish, she said the United States is committed to helping El Salvador and will continue fighting “so that Salvadorans don’t feel the need to leave.”
Under the terms of the decision announced Monday by the Department of Homeland Security, the administration will notify Salvadorans who benefit from the program that they have until Sept. 9, 2019, to leave or find a way to obtain legal residency.
In 2001, after two deadly earthquakes struck El Salvador, the George W. Bush administration allowed undocumented Salvadorans who were residing in the United States before February 2001 to apply for protected status, which allowed them to obtain work permits and spared them from deportation. The temporary program has been renewed several times in the ensuing years.
“Salvadorans have been beneficiaries of this program for so long it created an illusion that this would lead to a permanent residency,” said a Latin American diplomat who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly. The prospect of losing this status is “going to be very, very disappointing, not only back in El Salvador.”
According to the DHS statement, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen decided that conditions in El Salvador have improved significantly since the earthquakes, erasing the original justification for the program. The announcement also comes in the context of the Trump administration’s wider efforts to cut legal immigration to the United States and deport more of those who enter the country illegally.
The estimated 200,000 Salvadorans who enjoy this protected status also have roughly as many U.S.-born children, who are now at risk of seeing their parents and other relatives deported.
“Families will be torn apart,” the diplomat said.
[‘I consider this my country’: Salvadorans in U.S. devastated by TPS decision]
If all TPS holders return or are deported, it will impose an enormous strain on a country of 6.2 million people where poverty is widespread and gang violence remains a serious problem. Although homicides have fallen over the past two years, El Salvador still had nearly 4,000 killings last year, giving it the highest murder rate in Central America, at more than 60 homicides per 100,000 people. In 2001, the year of the earthquakes, there were about 2,300 homicides.
Another major impact of the decision could be a decline in the amount of money that Salvadorans in the United States send home. Remittances now surpass $4.5 billion a year, accounting for about 17 percent of the country’s GDP, according to the World Bank, and ranking as its single greatest source of income.
“The economic impact is going to be undeniable,” said Roberto Rubio-Fabian, executive director of FUNDE, a nonprofit research organization in San Salvador. Remittances are the “pillar that supports an economy with serious structural problems,” he said.
Experts said there are no good estimates yet about the potential loss in remittances, as it remains unclear how many migrants with TPS might end up returning to El Salvador. If large numbers do return, voluntarily or by being deported, they could push others out of the workforce.
“They’re going to come back as pretty qualified, bilingual people,” said Geoff Thale, a Central America expert at the Washington Office on Latin America. “What this is going to do is displace people there” and potentially cause “another surge in people leaving the country and looking for work here.”
The administration’s decision could also mean political trouble for President Salvador Sánchez Cerén, a former guerrilla commander during El Salvador’s civil war who has been in office since 2014. His leftist political party, the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), could suffer in local and congressional elections in March, as well as a presidential contest next year, as a result of the TPS decision, according to political analysts.
“This will have a cost,” said Sandra de Barraza, a columnist with La Prensa Grafica, a Salvadoran newspaper. “The government could have had a more aggressive policy of assisting” those in the TPS program.
Some Salvadoran officials tried to cast the Trump administration’s decision in a positive light, noting that other countries, such as Honduras, received a shorter grace period before their TPS program ended.
“I see this time they’ve given us as positive, so that we can fight for another status, and I don’t expect a massive deportation in the short term,” said Héctor Antonio Rodríguez, the head of El Salvador’s immigration agency.
He predicted that if TPS holders are deported, many will try to return to the United States.
“They are not going to want to stay in El Salvador,” he said. “They are going to try again to go by land into the U.S.”
Gabriela Martinez contributed to this report.
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