American Sanctuary

Refugees from the violence in El Salvador and Nicaragua continue to face deportation from the United States in what appears to be a violation of U.S. obligations to offer temporary sanctuary to these people until their homelands are pacified. That regrettable policy would be redressed by legislation now awaiting final action in the Senate.

The bills, sponsored by Sen. Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.) and Rep. Joe Moakley (D-Mass.), would grant extended voluntary departure status to the more than 500,000 Salvadoran refugees and the more than 100,000 Nicaraguans in the United States, allowing them to accept work legally until it is safe for them to return to their homelands. The Senate version has cleared committee and awaits floor action. The House version passed last July on a vote of 237 to 181.

The importance of prompt action was underscored recently by a committee appointed by Mayor Tom Bradley of Los Angeles to deal with refugee problems. But the committee’s appeal also exposed a grave defect in the legislation, because it does not offer the same protection to refugees from Guatemala who are less numerous than the Salvadorans but have been forced to flee similar threats to their lives. Obviously, political considerations have constrained the sponsors to offer a limited bill, balanced between refugees from El Salvador, where the rebels are from the left and death squads from the right, and Nicaragua, where the rebels are from the right and the government from the left.

Tentative agreement on a cease-fire in Nicaragua between the government and the Contra rebel forces holds more promise of pacification there than in El Salvador and Guatemala. It has been easier for Nicaraguan refugees to gain asylum because of the Reagan Administration commitment to support opposition forces in Nicaragua.

The Reagan Administration has resisted granting asylum to those fleeing violence in El Salvador and Guatemala because it would undermine Washington’s assertions that democracy prevails in those two nations. But President Jose Napoleon Duarte of El Salvador has personally endorsed the Moakley-DeConcini legislation in recognition of the violence that continues in his country. Indeed, the recent electoral victory of the rightist Arena party in El Salvador is likely to be accompanied by an escalation of the fighting because of its opposition to negotiations with rebel forces. Guatemala also is seeing a continuation of violence, with death squads still operating, the armed forces continuing violent repression of Indian populations, and the popularly-elected president, Vinicio Cerezo Arevalo, largely under the thumb of the military.

The Moakley-DeConcini legislation, incomplete as it is, nevertheless addresses an important problem, an issue of justice for the refugees of El Salvador and Nicaragua. Congress may overcome later its resistance to offering this protection to Guatemalan refugees. In the meantime, organizations working on behalf of the refugees can at least exhaust the administrative remedies to try to protect the Guatemalans from deportations that place them at risk.