President Trump ended TPS, or temporary protected status, for Salvadorans,
who up until now have been able to live and work in the U.S. legally. They got the status in 2001
after devastating earthquakes hit their country,
but now nearly 200,000 Salvadorans will have to go back to their country by September 2019.
And for some, it could be a matter of life and death.
I'm about to visit Jose, whose health will be in jeopardy if his family has to leave.
Jose is 23. He came to the U.S. from El Salvador when he was 9.
He's battled leukemia since he was 15, and recently relapsed for the third time.
Leukemia was found in my spinal fluid and in my brain, so I relapsed yet again, and I'm gonna do a treatment
called CAR-T, which will genetically modify my own cells to fight the cancer, and it's a real chance at a cure.
So you're just waiting to go back to the hospital?
It could be any day now?
Yeah, I'm just waiting for my insurance to approve the treatment
and go back to the hospital and start the treatment.
But that's where the problem lies, when looking at the family's uncertain future. Jose has DACA
and his parents are under temporary protected status.
He's covered under his mother's private health insurance.
If your mom's TPS status is terminated, your health is in real jeopardy.
Yeah, and there's a lot of kids that are in my situation.
I just think, yeah, my health is in jeopardy.
I would lose my insurance, and I don't know what I would do at that point,
because her insurance is the reason why I'm here today.
I had my bone marrow transplant with her insurance.
She was actually my donor, so my mom has fought really hard for me to be alive.
Jose attends college and works part-time at school,
but he doesn't have enough hours to get health insurance. His mother left El Salvador in
2001, just after two devastating earthquakes killed 1,200 people and left another 1 million homeless.
His father left in 1996, several years after a 12-year civil war tore the country apart.
During that war, the U.S. assisted a right-wing Salvadoran government
that used army-backed death squads to kill tens of thousands.
So your parents have benefited from their temporary protection status for a number of years now.
Yeah, my mom has had it for 15 and my dad's had it for 20.
How did they feel?
How did you all feel when you heard that the Trump administration is going to end it?
It was hard. I think it was hard for them to hear that, and it was also hard for me, the uncertainty.
You hear about my status being discussed and the American public
really supports it, like 80-90 percent really want something for the the Dreamer kids.
But you never hear anyone talk about temporary protected status. They're an older population.
They came here straight to work. My mom told me, I asked her, "How do you feel?"
They're like, "We're older, we came here to work. And we're not as marketable as you guys are."
And it's sad to hear people think about each other as
marketable or whether you're worthy or not.
Despite the popular support for DACA recipients, Jose still gets his share of online hate.
So when I was in the hospital last time, a lot of interviews that I did came out simultaneously
while I had to be inpatient. They were listing the hospital I was in
and people were like, "We need to find out what hospital he's in so we can call ICE."
And it was a real safety concern at that point. And I had to let the hospital know. And they basically erased
my name, so if anybody called, they wouldn't say that I was at the hospital.
It doesn't matter that I have DACA. It doesn't matter that my parents have
temporary protection. It doesn't matter that my mom works her ass off to get
private insurance. All of that goes above their head and the first thing is, "Let's call ICE."
Jose's grandmother has told him it's not safe to return to their old neighborhood in El Salvador because the U.S.
has deported gang members back to the area.
So the government, in determining that TPS should end,
said, "We look at El Salvador and we've determined that it's safe for folks to go back now."
What do you say to them?
They pulled out their Peace Corps from El Salvador.
How did that determination come about, that Americans are not safe in El Salvador,
but somehow these other people are?
The U.S. has really meddled within my country and it's
really a byproduct of the U.S. policies that El Salvador's not a safe place right now.
For me, hearing that my DACA was rescinded, I would be forced to go to a country
that's homophobic and that would not protect me.
Doesn't protect trans rights. We have no protection under there
and the homophobia is really strong and people often get killed.
How do you think the Trump administration views someone like you?
I think the current administration looks at someone like me not well.
They want to use my status as a bargaining chip, like,
"Hey, listen, we'll give you this if you give me $24 billion for a wall."
I benefit from the Affordable Healthcare Act, and we all know they're trying to repeal it.
I'm a queer man who has a preexisting condition.
I'm an immigrant, I'm undocumented. They hate me.
In addition to battling leukemia right now, there are so many things up in the air in your life.
How do you explain how you even feel?
It's odd. I think we, as undocumented immigrants, we just kind of show up. That's what we do.
My parents inflicted a really, really good work ethic.
So when I was going through high school, I finished my high school while doing treatment.
I was puking and reading books and then
I went back to college two months right after my transplant was done.
So you just go ahead and follow life, and hope for the best.
Hi everyone, it's Dena. Jose's story is
just one example of so many immigrant families whose future is in limbo.
Check out more of our reporting in the Direct From
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