The following article by WIll Drabold of Mic.com’s “Navigating Trump’s America” email January 9, 2018:
President Donald Trump’s tweets about his own “genius” have led many to question whether he is mentally stable. The White House now wants to pivot conversation away from the dialogue that has led to days of pundits and politicians questioning Trump’s fitness to be president.
Monday, however, showed that the Trump administration remains far from erratic, with its continued commitment to controversial, isolationist policy.
More than 200,000 immigrants from El Salvador were informed Monday that they will lose their protected status in the United States in September 2019. Many of these immigrants have lived in the U.S. since 2001, when an earthquake struck the small Central American country.
In November, 59,000 Haitians living in the U.S. since 2010 had been told their Temporary Protected Status will end July 22, 2019. In addition, nearly 6,000 Nicaraguans living in the U.S. since 1999 were notified in November that their TPS would end.
With these moves, the Trump administration has nearly wiped out a program that lets more than 300,000 immigrants live and work in the United States. TPS for 86,000 Hondurans was extended from November, and will be reconsidered in July 2018.
This came a day before Trump’s meeting Tuesday with Senate Republicans and Democrats to discuss a deal on immigration. Nearly a year after his inauguration, Trump has stood firm in his demand that any protections for immigrants be met with funding for his border wall with Mexico.
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals is a better-known program that has a similar function to TPS: It allows nearly 800,000 undocumented immigrants to remain in the U.S. legally. For months, polls have shown a majority of Americans, including Republicans, want to see DACA recipients protected following Trump’s decision in September to suspend the program after six months.
Yet Trump’s policy is fueled by an understanding that his promises to build a wall and curb immigration were key to his election victory. Putting the lives of more than 1 million immigrants in limbo is consistent with his moves to increase deportations away from borders, cut the number of refugees entering the U.S. and limit immigration from several Muslim-majority countries.
Broadly, Republicans want less immigration, while Democrats support it. As conservatives and liberals in Congress continue negotiations over DACA, both sides will have to contend with those views from their bases.