New Spin on Refugee Law

For several years, members of Congress have tried but failed to persuade the Reagan and Bush Administrations to allow illegal aliens from war-torn Central America to remain in this country until the turmoil there subsides. Now the most recent legislation designed to help Central American refugees may win approval because its authors have included provisions protecting a third group of aliens who may be in danger if they go home--citizens of the Peoples Republic of China.

Earlier this week, the House of Representatives approved a bill that would delay deportation of illegal immigrants from China, El Salvador and Nicaragua for three years. The bill, by Reps. Joe Moakley (D-Mass.) and Bruce A. Morrison (D-Conn.), also lays out conditions under which a similar “temporary protected status” could be granted to refugees from other countries by the Justice Department’s Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Proponents of the measure want the new refugee rules to replace the current system through which INS sometimes grants a special status, “extended voluntary departure,” to immigrants from strife-torn nations. They argue that the current system is arbitrary, discretionary and inconsistent. That has certainly been the case with Central Americans. At the height of formerPresident Reagan’s covert war against Nicaragua, persons opposed to the Sandinistas were encouraged to seek refuge here. Yet people fleeing the bloodier Salvadoran civil war were denied asylum because the U.S. government did not want to embarrass a friendly government in San Salvador. Now that Nicaragua’s war is winding down with the Sandinistas still in power, the INS also is starting to turn down asylum requests from Nicaraguans.

Extending the bill to cover Chinese nationals in the United States was a stroke of political genius by the authors, whose bill has already benefited from the outpouring of sympathy Americans have shown for Chinese dissidents in the wake of the June massacre in Beijing. In the House vote, the measure won support from congressmen who had opposed it in the past. If it passes the Senate and gets to President Bush’s desk, it will pose a very uncomfortable political dilemma for him.

The Administration could get around the Moakley-Morrison bill simply by granting extended voluntary departure to Central Americans and to Chinese refugees. Since it’s already allowed within the law, that would be easy and preferable. But if the Administration remains rigid in dealing with Central American refugees, the proposed new law will be both necessary and desirable.