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TEMPORARY AMNESTY FOR GUATEMALAN AND SALVADORAN NATIONALS EXPIRES
The 3-month period of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) granted to Guatemalans and Salvadorans as a result of the devastation caused by Hurricane Mitch expired on March 8, 1999. The first flight home for Guatemalan detainees took place on March 16, when the U.S. Marshals Service accompanied 60 Guatemalans, including 17 people with criminal records who were deportable during the TPS period. Another flight, on March 18 carried 60 people, including 10 with criminal records.
The first deportation flight for El Salvadoran nationals took place on March 19. The flight was expected to carry 81 people, including 57 with criminal records, and flights are scheduled to occur through the remainder of March.
Officials in Guatemala and El Salvador maintain conditions there have not changed so much that they are now ready to receive thousands of returning people; furthermore, the countries are dependant on the money their citizens send home from the U.S. In El Salvador, for example, about one million of the country’s 5.5 million citizens work in the U.S., with the money they send home representing 20% of the country’s foreign income. The $ 1.2 billion sent home to El Salvador in 1997 is equivalent to more than all the U.S. relief money sent to Central America since the hurricane.
TPS has been granted to nationals of Honduras and Nicaragua for a period of 18 months, but officials in those countries are already lobbying for an extension. 
Hurricane Mitch was one of the most destructive hurricanes ever in the Western Hemisphere, killing almost 10,000 people, leaving over 3 million people homeless, and causing approximately $ 4 billion in damage. It is estimated that the region’s industrial and economic infrastructure will take twenty years to recover from the disaster.