INS Mulls Shift on Salvadorans, Guatemalans

The Clinton administration is considering a plan that would make it much easier for hundreds of thousands of Salvadoran and Guatemalan immigrants to gain legal residency after living for years under the threat of deportation.

The murky legal status of perhaps more than 500,000 Salvadoran and Guatemalan immigrants--most of whom arrived during the 1980s as warfare engulfed the two nations--has long been an unresolved dilemma of U.S. law and a source of tension with regional governments. About half reside in Southern California, according to community estimates.

On Monday, President Clinton will launch a swing through hurricane-stricken Central America, where leaders have repeatedly pressed Washington to resolve the immigration status of their former compatriots, warning that mass deportations would be a destabilizing force for their fledgling democracies.

Central Americans in the United States help prop up fragile economies by sending home billions of dollars each year.

U.S. officials say the long-term fate of Salvadorans and Guatemalans here will probably remain unresolved through this week, as Clinton travels through the region. Yet the president, an aide said, “will be leaning as far forward as he can” in reassuring Central American leaders that an equitable solution is in the works.

The new proposal would presume that eligible immigrants from these two countries would suffer “extreme hardship” if they were forced to return, an administrative step that would virtually guarantee them legal residency.

Such a blanket finding reverses an Immigration and Naturalization Service proposal that would have required applicants to prove they would suffer extreme hardship if deported. That idea drew condemnation from Salvadoran and Guatemalan activists from Los Angeles to Washington, who say few could meet the complex hardship requirements without expensive lawyers.

Hurricane Mitch prompted the INS to suspend most deportations to Central America, though expulsions of Salvadorans and Guatemalans are scheduled to resume Monday. Illegal immigrants from Honduras and Nicaragua, the two nations hardest hit by the storm, were given an 18-month reprieve from deportation.

The revised proposal, if adopted, would help equalize the treatment that Salvadorans and Guatemalans received under the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act of 1997. The statute granted outright amnesty to as many as 150,000 Nicaraguans, but required that Salvadorans and Guatemalans prove their hardship claims on a case-by-case basis.

In a reflection of lingering Cold War attitudes, the law’s architects viewed Nicaraguans largely as refugees from the left-wing Sandinista regime, while Salvadorans and Guatemalans fled right-wing governments allied with Washington. Arguing that such distinctions were unjust, Latino activists and some lawmakers have aggressively pressured the White House to reverse the INS position.

“We’re cautiously hopeful that the disparity of treatment between El Salvadorans and Guatemalans on the one hand, and Nicaraguans on the other hand, could be alleviated to a very large degree through the rule-making process,” said Maria Echaveste, White House deputy chief of staff.

However, officials caution that no decision has been made, and it will probably be several weeks before the Clinton administration unveils its exact intentions regarding the Salvadoran and Guatemalan immigrants. The plan is expected to come in the form of a final or interim INS regulation, with no need for legislative approval.

The decision is eagerly awaited among Central American immigrants, who in a decade or so have largely been transformed from an unsettled refugee population to a more permanent community undergoing gradual adjustment to U.S. society.

Most affected Salvadorans and Guatemalans have put down roots, and many have purchased homes, launched businesses and had U.S.-born children. To be eligible for relief under the 1997 law, Salvadorans and Guatemalans must have arrived in the United States by 1990, or must be the spouse or child of someone who was here by then.

Some Republicans Oppose Proposal

The proposal to ease the application process for Salvadorans and Guatemalans remains politically explosive. Recent word of the plan generated a broadside from Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), chairman of the House Immigration Subcommittee and a leading critic of the president’s immigration policy.

“The administration is on the verge of granting ‘de facto’ amnesty to hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens,” Smith stated in a letter to the White House signed by 28 House Republicans. “The administration’s hope is to do this in the dark of the night so that nobody notices. . . . The White House is shamelessly bowing to special interests.”

The denunciation is a sharp contrast to the toned-down rhetoric of a Republican Party increasingly worried about its image in California and other immigrant-heavy states.

“Lamar Smith is doing for House Republicans what Pete Wilson did for the California GOP,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, a Washington-based umbrella group supportive of Salvadoran and Guatemalan immigrants.

Other prominent Republicans--including Sens. Orrin Hatch of Utah and Spencer Abraham of Michigan--joined Democratic senators in urging the Clinton administration to support a “group-specific determination of extreme hardship” for affected Salvadorans and Guatemalans. Such a finding would “foster administrative efficiency and be fundamentally fair,” the bipartisan coalition of seven senators said last month.

“When Hurricane Mitch struck the region in November 1998, the little progress these countries had made in rebuilding their economies, infrastructure and communities after the end of the civil wars was substantially reversed,” the senators wrote to Atty. Gen. Janet Reno.

In Los Angeles, Washington, Houston and other Central American enclaves, conflicting reports about the new rules have generated mass confusion and a rich opportunity for scam artists.

Immigration consultants, notaries public, unscrupulous lawyers and others have been urging Central Americans to take advantage of an “amnesty” that doesn’t exist, often charging hundreds or thousands of dollars for worthless guarantees and documentation. Officials say that most Salvadorans and Guatemalans are better off waiting until the administration reveals its final plan and the INS provides forms and guidance.

“Unfortunately, people are taking advantage of a desperate situation,” said Judy London, attorney for the Central American Resource Center in Los Angeles. “Because it’s all so complex, the community really doesn’t know who to trust for advice.”