Plan to Aid Salvadoran, Guatemalan Immigrants

The Clinton administration will implement guidelines that virtually guarantee legal residency in the United States for as many as 500,000 immigrants from El Salvador and Guatemala, a senior White House official said Wednesday.

The steps, which are expected to be announced by immigration authorities today, are intended to resolve one of the most difficult immigration problems facing the nation.

The plan would make it possible for immigrants who fled civil wars in El Salvador and Guatemala in the 1980s to avoid deportation without having to go through the cumbersome, and often impossible, task of proving that they would suffer extreme hardship if they were sent back to their homelands.

Rather, the U.S. government would presume that they would be subject to such hardship, a key step for meeting the rules to remain here as legal immigrants.

Perhaps half those affected by the new rules live in Southern California.

Leaders of immigrant communities described the new plan as a landmark step for those who fled their homelands during Cold War-era strife but have lived for years under the threat of deportation.

“This is a landmark in the struggle for Central American immigrants in this country, and especially in Los Angeles, which is the hub of the community,” said Judy London, legal director of the Central American Resource Center in Los Angeles. “Just the fact that there is a presumption of hardship is a tremendous victory and will make the process for applicants more fair and humane.”

However, activists also stressed that the application process remains lengthy and expensive and it was unclear how liberally the Immigration and Naturalization Service will carry out the new rules.

Central American community activists and their supporters had lobbied hard for the new policy, pressing the administration to respond to a plea from a Latino community that has become an important Democratic Party ally, particularly in California.

Administration officials were prepared for strong objections from several members of Congress, including Rep. Lamar S. Smith (R-Texas), chairman of the immigration and claims subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee. However, the administration’s plan does not require congressional approval.

“We think the immigration groups will be pleased,” said Maria Echaveste, a deputy White House chief of staff. But, she said, some groups still are likely to seek a blanket amnesty.

The policy is intended to give the Salvadorans and Guatemalans treatment closer to that afforded Nicaraguans under a 1997 law known as the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act. The statute granted outright amnesty to as many as 150,000 Nicaraguans but required Salvadorans and Guatemalans to prove their hardship claims on a case-by-case basis.

Authors of the law, reflecting lingering Cold War attitudes, saw Nicaraguans largely as refugees from the left-wing Sandinista regime, but Salvadorans and Guatemalans, who arrived in the United States at the same time, had fled right-wing governments supported by the Reagan and Bush administrations.

President Clinton “was very clear. He wanted to end the discrimination between fighters on the left and fighters on the right,” an administration official said.

About 200,000 immigrants from El Salvador and Guatemala are believed to be eligible for residency under the policy, according to community and government estimates. All must have been in the country by 1990. Their minor children and spouses will also be eligible, boosting the number of people who could end up with legal status to half a million.

“This is going to be big in L.A., which has one of the largest Salvadoran populations in the United States,” Echaveste said.

The Clinton administration had signaled the approach on which it decided early in March, as Clinton embarked on a four-day tour of Central America. At the time, Clinton came under pressure from the presidents with whom he met to act quickly to resolve the issue. They expressed concern that a sudden return of hundreds of thousands of immigrants would further stress economies struggling to overcome the devastation caused by Hurricane Mitch in November.

The White House sent the matter to the Justice Department, the parent agency of INS, with Clinton’s preference clearly stated. But the department raised objections, first questioning whether the presumption of hardship on which the new policy is based is a legal course, and then moving slowly in the face of what it anticipated would be an outcry from key figures in the congressional debate on immigration.

The decision culminates an epic legal and political struggle that started in the 1980s as tens of thousands of Central Americans began arriving in the United States, often having crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally. Many applied for political asylum, but Salvadorans and Guatemalans seldom were granted safe haven--a fact that activists said in a federal class-action case was proof of discrimination against them.

That suit was settled in 1990, providing protection--and temporary working permits--for hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans and Guatemalans. Congress and successive administrations later extended their temporary legal status until a permanent solution could be worked out.

The 1997 law was supposed to resolve the dilemma faced by Central American immigrants. But the treatment of Salvadorans and Guatemalans compared to that of Nicaraguans and Cubans left many bitterly disappointed.

The Clinton administration’s decision goes part of the way toward resolving the disparity, community leaders said.

“We do feel the administration listened carefully to the concerns of the immigrant community, and went a long way toward rectifying some of the errors that were made in the earlier proposals,” London said.