Salvadorans Rush to Beat Deadline for Legal Status

Encouraged by a recent loosening of procedures by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, a rush of Salvadoran refugees are applying for a unique program allowing them to temporarily live and work in the United States.

With less than two weeks left before the June 30 application deadline, immigrants rights groups in Los Angeles say they are handling several thousand applications a week, compared with less than 100 a week three months ago.

“The number of applications is skyrocketing,” said Madeline Janis, executive director of the Central American Refugee Center in Los Angeles.

As of May 31, more than 76,000 Salvadorans around the country applied for the program, which will allow them to stay in the country until June, 1992, the INS said.

Immigrants rights advocates say the largest surge in applications has come in the past few weeks, but the INS does not have figures.

The number of applications, advocates say, has been boosted by an announcement late last month that the INS would reduce its registration fees for the program from $405 for each person to $255.

Refugee advocates are expecting an even faster pace because of the last-minute rush to meet the June deadline and a series of court orders requiring the INS to make the program, known as Temporary Protected Status, easier for refugees to submit applications.

The latest order came Wednesday, when U. S. District Judge David F. Levi in Sacramento issued a preliminary injunction requiring the INS district offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco to grant fee waivers to impoverished Salvadoran refugees and to accept sworn affidavits as proof of an applicant’s income level.

Levi’s decision was in response to a class-action lawsuit filed last month on behalf of thousands of Salvadoran refugees in Northern California by the San Francisco Lawyers’ Committee for Urban Affairs.

“Now we can really say to people that there is nothing to lose from filing an application, and everything to gain,” Janis said.

Janis said the only concern now is that the application deadline is only two weeks away and may expire before many eligible refugees, who waited for the reduction in fees or the availability of fee waivers, have a chance to enroll.

Rep. Joe Moakley (D-Mass.) has proposed extending the deadline to Oct. 31 to allow all eligible applicants a chance to apply.

INS Commissioner Gene McNary has called that proposal “premature,” saying that many people usually wait to the last minute to apply.

The proposal is pending.

The temporary haven program was approved by Congress last year in a groundbreaking effort to allow people fleeing war or natural disasters in their homelands to reside legally in this country.

Salvadorans, the first group allowed to apply, were granted temporary refuge from last January to June, 1992.

Kuwaitis, Lebanese and Liberians also have been granted the opportunity to apply for temporary protected status.