Double Standard?

Evidently there is a double standard in this country in determining who is a refugee and who is an illegal alien.

Recently an East German swimmer, Jens-Peter Berndt, defected to the United States while his team was participating in an international swimming meet in Fayetteville, Ark. His defection was assisted by U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service officials.

As his East German coaches and teammates were preparing to board a plane, INS agents were quietly helping Berndt into a waiting van outside the airport terminal. With INS agents smiling benignly at his side, this world class East German athlete, replying to reporters questions, insisted that his defection was in no way political.

Later, while on an all-expenses-paid recruiting trip to the University of Alabama, Berndt continued to claim that his decision to remain in the United States was not a political one, but rather he just liked America. Ignoring his apolitical motivation, several members of Congress are already calling for immediate citizenship for the world record-setting East German. To do this they would, of course, waive the usual seven years residency requirement for U.S. citizenship.

At the same time INS agents were celebrating Berndt’s defection, they were in the process of arresting 16 religious and political activists in Tucson, Ariz. The charge was one of harboring illegal aliens.

Although these illegal aliens are mostly Salvadorans fleeing the ravages of a civil war and right-wing death squads, it doesn’t seem to concern the Reagan Administration. And it also doesn’t seem to matter that thousands of Salvadorans have been murdered in the last few years just for their opinions.

No, the U.S. government is proud to have announced to the world that it has jailed the leaders of this religious-based sanctuary movement.

The message that the Administration seems to be sending then is that we will take only those who can bring us the gold.

DON R. SHERMAN

San Pedro