• A Zillow analysis of home value data and TPS-specific demographic data shows Salvadoran immigrant homeowners protected by TPS likely paid at least $96.6 million in property taxes nationwide in 2017, and potentially as much as $166.1 million, depending on the value of the home they own.

Salvadoran immigrant homeowners previously granted Temporary Protective Status (TPS) likely paid at least roughly $100 million in property taxes nationwide last year, with more than half the total coming from taxes paid in California and Texas.

The Department of Homeland Security recently announced it is ending TPS protection for almost 200,000 Salvadoran immigrants that came to the U.S. in the wake of devastating earthquakes that struck El Salvador in 2001. A Zillow analysis of home value data and TPS-specific demographic data[1] shows Salvadoran homeowners protected by TPS likely paid at least $96.6 million in property taxes nationwide in 2017, and potentially as much as $166.1 million, depending on the value of the home they own.

The largest populations of Salvadoran immigrants living under TPS protection are in California and Texas, home to 49,100 and 36,300 Salvadoran households, respectively, of the approximately 195,000 total Salvadoran households nationwide under the TPS umbrella. Assuming a 30 percent homeownership rate – roughly the median across all TPS-eligible populations, according to the Center for Migration Studies – this means there are 14,730 TPS-protected Salvadoran homeowning households in California and 10,890 in Texas.

Zillow’s calculations[2] show that TPS-protected Salvadoran homeowners paid between $24.7 million and $45.9 million in property taxes in California in 2017, and $27 million-$36.8 million in Texas. In the Los Angeles area alone, it’s likely these families paid between $22.1 million and $32 million in 2017 property taxes. Virginia, New York and Maryland also have large numbers of TPS-protected Salvadoran households, likely contributing tens of millions of dollars in property taxes to local coffers.

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[1] Demographic data from the Center for Migration Studies http://cmsny.org/publications/jmhs-tps-elsalvador-honduras-haiti/

[2] Zillow assumed: These households owned a home ranging in value from the median, bottom-third home (16.7 percentile) to the median-valued home (50^th percentile) in their area, according to the November 2017 Zillow Home Value Index; and they paid property taxes equal to state-median rates.