Play Fair With These Refugees

The Clinton administration has devised a plan that should help resolve one of the nation’s most difficult immigration issues, the status of nearly 500,000 Guatemalan and Salvadoran refugees who fled their countries during the Central American wars of the 1970s and 1980s.

They will not receive the blanket amnesty that Congress granted two years ago to Cubans and Nicaraguans who fled Communist-led regimes. The status of the Salvadoran and Guatemalan refugees is murkier. The regimes they fled were supported by U.S. administrations during Central America’s civil wars. They will not get a free pass, but that does not mean they should be denied an opportunity to make a case to stay.

Under the Clinton administration program, those seeking to remain must file new documents to back their claim to refugee status and, ultimately, to remain as legal residents. Failure to make a case could lead to deportation. That judgment will be made by the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

It won’t be easy for applicants to complete the complex and intimidating process. Paperwork will require the help of a professional consultant, counsel that most immigrants cannot afford. In all fairness, the INS should simplify the rules and be as generous as the cases allow in making its decisions.

Advocates say the refugees should have been given asylum and some sort of legal status the moment they set foot on U.S. soil. But the Reagan and Bush administrations held that only 3% of them were victims of a war fought with U.S. assistance. From postwar evaluations by knowledgeable investigators, that number seems incredibly low. The INS should take a hard look at what appears to be a dubious barrier.

Now, more than a decade after fleeing the genocide in Guatemala and death squads in El Salvador, many of these immigrants have put down roots in the United States and borne children who are American citizens. In many cases they could not return to their home countries without risk. Like all civil wars, those in El Salvador and Guatemala have long shadows.

The INS will begin accepting applications for refugee status June 21. Community-based support groups like the Central American Resource Center should deploy their resources to assure that the refugees get a fair hearing. They have paid the price.