Center Helps Protect Hundreds From Deportation : Salvadorans: Staffers help immigrants with applications for 18-month residency extension announced last month.

They begin lining up as early as 7 a.m., two hours before the center opens. Vendors selling mango slices, fried plantains, hot dogs and juices do a brisk business among the hundreds of Salvadoran immigrants who come each day to complete forms allowing them to remain in this country.

By the end of the day, more than 300 Salvadoran immigrants will have passed through the Central American Refugee Center (CARECEN) on South Bonnie Brae Street in the Pico-Union district. Staffers at the center began assisting Salvadorans last week with forms for a program protecting them from deportation.

Last month, the Clinton Administration announced an 18-month extension of the Deferred Enforced Departure program, giving nearly 200,000 Salvadoran immigrants the right to legally live and work in the United States.

CARECEN officials said Friday that they will help 20,000 to 30,000 of Los Angeles’ more than 80,000 Salvadorans with the forms before June 30, the deadline for one category of immigrants. Applicants age 14 and older must pay a $60 fee imposed by the Immigration and Naturalization Service for work permits, but the help from CARECEN is free.

The program has its origins in El Salvador’s bloody civil war and the mass deportations of Salvadoran immigrants from the United States. Pressure from immigrants’ rights groups prompted Congress to pass a law in 1990 granting temporary protected status to Salvadorans who could prove they had been in the country before Sept. 19, 1990. That program allowed eligible Salvadorans to remain in the country and legally work.

Salvadorans who qualified for temporary protected status are covered by the Deferred Enforced Departure program, which would have ended June 30 if President Clinton had not extended it for 18 months.

Those Salvadorans granted Deferred Enforced Departure status have until Dec. 31, 1994, to apply for the extension. Those who have temporary protected status but never applied for Deferred Enforced Departure must apply before June 30 to be eligible until December, 1994, INS officials said.

Previously issued work permits, which were to expire June 30, have been automatically extended until Oct. 31, officials said.

Immigrants with expired work permits will not be deportable “because they have the extension,” CARECEN spokeswoman Martha Arevalo said. “But they could lose their jobs without the cards.”

The program is only open to Salvadorans, but political instability in Guatemala has stepped up efforts to extend it to immigrants from that country.

Although the government of El Salvador and guerrilla forces signed a peace agreement in January, 1992, immigrants say the resulting peace is held together by the barest of threads and the country’s economy is a shambles. For those reasons, they do not foresee moving back to their native country soon.

“The peace is very fragile and human rights violations continue,” said Judita Omaya, president of the Assn. of Salvadorans and a volunteer at CARECEN. “If I go back, my life could be in danger.”

The lines on Bonnie Brae outside the center snake down the street in both directions, but they move quickly. Once inside the center, applicants are given a brief talk on immigrants rights, complete their forms and have their photos taken in less than an hour.

Standing in line outside the center, Antonio Rivas, 25, said he did not like Los Angeles because the city has too many gangs. “But I would prefer to be here than in El Salvador,” he said. “You can avoid the gangs here, but not the military in El Salvador.”

Standing nearby, Carlos Olmedo, 27, a forklift driver from Hacienda Heights, made it clear that he wants to become a U.S. citizen.

“Supposedly there is peace in El Salvador, but right now it’s too hard to live there,” he said. “I want to live my life here and be able to visit my family there.”

Rivas added: “Everybody wants to be a citizen.”

Concepcion Aguilar has watched the lines of immigrants file into the building each day since CARECEN began offering help. She has stood at her food stand, bagging fried plantains and mango slices from 8 a.m. until 6 p.m. each workday.

Customers snap up the mango slices, seasoned with salt, lime juice, red pepper and crushed sesame seeds, nearly as fast as she can bag them. And if business does not slow down, she said, she may have to hire someone to watch her stand so that she can go inside to file for her own extension.