INS Can Confine Refugees to South Texas, Judge Says

A federal judge today ruled that the Immigration and Naturalization Service can reinstate a policy that confines refugees to South Texas while their applications for political asylum are considered.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Filemon B. Vela denied an injunction sought by attorneys for refugees who sued the INS over the no-travel policy.

The regulation was blamed for a backup of hundreds of homeless Central Americans at the southern tip of Texas. The judge Jan. 9 temporarily ordered the INS to allow refugees to travel to their intended U.S. destinations while he reviewed the request for a permanent lifting of the no-travel policy.

Tent City Foreseen

Many refugees then boarded buses for California and Florida.

A report Thursday indicated that Central American refugees may be detained in a South Texas tent city while their applications for political asylum are processed. U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) said the facility will meet basic human necessities of adequate housing, food and sanitary conditions. There will not be a fence.

“We think that’s going to create a multitude of problems here in the (Lower Rio Grande) valley,” Mark Schneider, one of the attorneys who sued the INS over the matter, said after learning of the judge’s decision.

The attorneys quickly appealed Vela’s order. Attorney Linda Yanez said she filed the appeal in Brownsville and asked for an injunction against the INS pending that appeal.

Huge Case Backlogs

More than 100,000 Central Americans are expected to pour into the area this year, after crossing the Rio Grande illegally near Brownsville, the INS said.

INS officials last spring reported a large increase in the number of Central Americans seeking political asylum in South Texas. The agency had stamped asylum-seekers documents and allowed them to travel to their declared U.S. destinations until Dec. 15 when, faced with huge case backlogs in cities such as Miami and Los Angeles, it started requiring people to pursue their cases in Harlingen.

Hundreds of immigrants began camping in squalid conditions in makeshift tents and condemned buildings in the area, prompting a local public outcry.