Seventy-year-old UNITE HERE 23 member Juan Yanez (right), a TPS recipient from El Salvador, says that by eliminating TPS “Trump is taking away all we have,” citing the years he and other immigrants have spent paying taxes into Social Security and other programs. Like Yanez, who says his time in the US has been “all about work,” about 88% of TPS recipients from El Salvador are employed and pay income taxes. Immigration policy experts believe it will be difficult, if not impossible, for people like Yanez to access Medicare and Social Security benefits if they are deported to their country of origin. “We are hard workers. We don’t hurt anyone, we just work every day to survive.”
-Adapted from a piece written for Rewire by Tina Vasquez; read the full report here
-Adapted from a piece written for Rewire by Tina Vasquez; read the full report here