In the News
SANTA CRUZ >> It was a familiar scene in Santa Cruz: A dozen people holding banners and waving flags on a Highway 1 overpass.
But the signs weren't in protest. Instead, they promoted the inaugural Martin Luther King Jr. March for the Dream slated for Monday in downtown Santa Cruz.
CONGRESSMAN JIMMY Panetta said he's optimistic that the extraordinary meeting President Donald Trump convened at the White House with Republican and Democratic leaders Tuesday over the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program will soon lead to a resolution, which the Democrat from Carmel Valley said could include some sort of a wall on the southern border.
The Trump administration faces a deadline Monday to decide whether to renew a program granting temporary immigration status to over 200,000 immigrants from El Salvador.
The Trump administration on Monday announced it's ending temporary protected status for nearly 200,000 Salvadorans who fled their earthquake-ravaged country years ago.
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen announced the end of the program, but said the department will delay its termination for 18 months.
El Salvador’s Ministry of Foreign Relations released an immediate response, saying it is "committed to looking for alternatives."
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration said Monday it is ending special protections for Salvadoran immigrants, an action that could force nearly 200,000 to leave the U.S. by September 2019 or face deportation.
El Salvador is the fourth country whose citizens have lost Temporary Protected Status under President Donald Trump. Salvadorans have been, by far, the largest beneficiaries of the program, which provides humanitarian relief for foreigners whose countries are hit with natural disasters or other strife.
WASHINGTON >> The Trump administration's decision to end special protections for about 200,0000 Salvadoran immigrants filled many Salvadoran families with dread Monday, raising the possibility that they will be forced to abandon their roots in the U.S. and return to a violent homeland they have not known for years, even decades.
WATSONVILLE — On Jan. 13, 2001, a 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit El Salvador, devastating the Central American country.
Almost 1,000 people were killed and more than 5,500 were injured. Hundreds of buildings were damaged and aftershocks continued to hit the region for weeks after.
For Tomas Escobar and his family, a decision in Washington D.C. on Monday could devastate their lives.
While his 14-year-old daughter is a U.S. citizen, Escobar, his wife and their 21-year-old daughter, who is in college, are not under any permanent legal status.
Nonetheless, they are legally living in California's central coast under the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program, which has provided renewable periods of asylum to those who fled, or are from, certain countries in distress.
WATSONVILLE >> Soquel resident Nelson Membreno, 44, fled to the U.S. 22 years ago from El Salvador, to escape a bloody civil war.
In 2001, along with other Salvadorans, he became eligible for Temporary Protected Status. The federal program was created under in 1990 under President George H. W. Bush to serve refugees and immigrants whose homeland was deemed unsafe.
The status allows people to stay working and living in the U.S.as long as their country is deemed too dangerous to return to.