Federal Refugee Haven Program Gets Poor Response : Salvadorans: Immigration rights advocates blame low turnout on high fees, fear of deportation.

A federal program granting temporary haven to thousands of Salvadoran refugees has drawn a dismal response in Los Angeles largely because of high registration fees and a fear among immigrants that they could risk deportation by applying, immigrant rights advocates say.

Since the program began in January, 5,200 people have registered with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service in Los Angeles, even though as many as 300,000 Salvadorans here may be eligible, according to estimates by local immigrant rights groups.

The 33,000 applications nationwide have also disappointed immigrant rights groups, who had expected hundreds of thousands to register.

With the June 30 registration deadline approaching, immigration activists are now worried that a rare opportunity to gain temporary legal status with the right to work in the United States may pass with only a fraction of those eligible taking advantage.

“The current state of this program is nearing crisis,” said Madeline Janis, executive director of the Central American Refugee Center in Los Angeles. “So many people are not applying for a program that we fought 10 years to achieve.”

Janis said part of the blame for the weak turnout in Los Angeles, which has the largest Salvadoran population in the country, lies with immigrant rights organizations. She said the groups at first doubted the program’s benefits and now regret their hesitation to encourage people to apply.

“I think initially we were all real cautious about this,” Janis said. “What stuck in people’s mind was deportation, deportation, deportation.”

But Janis also blamed the INS for setting the registration fees so high that it is too expensive for many Salvadorans in Los Angeles and around the country.

The INS charges $110 per person for registration and work documents. The fee must be paid every six months during the 18-month period of protection offered under the program.

“The fees are simply outlandish,” said Daniel Katz, executive director of the Central American Refugee Center in Washington, D.C., adding that Liberians, Libyans and Kuwaitis are only being charged $50 to register for a similar program.

The INS has promised to reduce the fee, but Katz said he doubted it will drop enough to attract many more applicants. “It’s not a deal. The fees are still absurdly high,” he said.

INS spokesman Duke Austin discounted the fees as a barrier to applications. “People made the same allegations during the amnesty program and look what happened. We had 3.1 million people apply,” he said.

Austin said the agency was legally required to set the Salvadoran fees to make the program self-supporting--a requirement Congress did not impose for Libyans, Liberians and Kuwaitis.

He said he believed that fewer people applied in Los Angeles because many Salvadorans in this area have already been granted temporary permission to stay and work in the U.S. as a result of pending political asylum requests.

Immigrant rights groups said that even these people would receive a longer period of protection under the new program.

Officially known as Temporary Protected Status, the program was approved by Congress last year in a groundbreaking effort to allow people fleeing war or natural disaster in their homelands to legally reside in this country. Salvadorans were granted temporary refuge for 18 months until June, 1992.

Katz said immigration activists in Washington were enthusiastic about the program from its inception, resulting in 7,200 applications.

In Los Angeles, activists said they were wary of the program because of the deportation risk once the program’s 18 months of haven had expired.

Guillermo Rodezno, executive director of El Rescate, an immigration rights group, said groups began re-evaluating their stance after the settlement last year of a class-action lawsuit granting new asylum hearings to thousands of Salvadorans.

Rodezno said that because any Salvadorans who registered for temporary protection would automatically be considered applicants for asylum, they could look forward to 18 months of temporary protection, followed by several more years of protection as their asylum cases are heard.

“We think now that this is a good opportunity,” he said. “One, two or three more years of protection could make a big difference to someone.”

In the last two weeks, the Coalition of Humane Immigration Rights of Los Angeles announced its support of the program. The day the group made its announcement, its immigration information hot line received 400 calls.

Organization Director Linda Mitchell said an advertising campaign also will begin in the next few weeks encouraging Salvadorans to apply for the program.