Column Time to take a stand against deportation
By DEMETRIA MARTINEZ
Sanctuary movement workers -- who in
the last decade gave shelter to thousands of refugees -- must again take a
stand, this time to prevent possible mass deportations.
Unless President Clinton and Congress act to prevent it, thousands
of refugees who fled Central America in the 1980s may again be uprooted, this
time forced to return to countries where crime and poverty run rampant and old
hatreds still smolder.
At risk are Salvadorans and Guatemalans who applied for political
asylum under terms of the settlement of American Baptist Churches v.
Thornburgh, arising from a law suit intended to end discrimination against
those two nationalities in the asylum process. Eighty religious and refugee
assistance organizations banded together in the American Baptist Churches --
ABC -- suit.
Their asylum cases have been held in abeyance since the settlement
was reached in December 1990 because of the Immigration and Naturalization
Service's large backlog of pending asylum applications and because, until
recently, most Salvadorans involved in the ABC suit were granted relief from
deportation through the Temporary Protected Status and Deferred Enforced
Departure programs.
With their asylum cases on hold, the refugees set about rebuilding
their lives -- working, paying taxes, rearing families and integrating
themselves into our communities.
Now, more than six years later, protected status is over for
Salvadorans, and the INS was ready to move forward with ABC asylum cases
beginning April 7.
Legal advocates fear that, due to harsh, new immigration laws and
the end of civil war (though not the killing) in both El Salvador and
Guatemala, many ABC class members may be denied asylum and ordered to be
deported.
Such a scenario would be the ultimate injustice for these refugees
who already have suffered greatly from our nation's flawed policies toward
Central America during the 1980s.
Rather than admit that civilians were being massacred by armies
trained and supplied by our government, the United States treated Salvadoran
and Guatemalan asylum seekers like economic migrants. Between 1983 and 1989,
only 2 percent of the Guatemalan and 2.5 percent of Salvadoran asylum cases
were approved.
In contrast, asylum seekers fleeing governments opposed by the
United States were more readily accepted. For example, 27 percent of asylum
seekers from Nicaragua -- where the CIA orchestrated the Contra war against the
ruling Sandinistas -- were granted during the same period, as were 73 percent
from the former Soviet Union and 62 percent from Iran.
Plaintiffs in the ABC suit charged that political asylum was being
used as an instrument of U.S. foreign policy, and that Salvadorans and
Guatemalans were denied asylum in violation of the Refugee Act of 1980. The act
establishes the right to asylum in the United States for immigrants who have a
"well-founded fear of persecution" because of their race, religion,
nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group.
The INS agreed to settle the suit by allowing certain Salvadorans
and Guatemalans, along with an estimated 150,000 who had already been denied
asylum, to apply under a revised and, advocates hoped, more just system. By the
end of the ABC registration period in 1991, some 280,000 Salvadorans and
Guatemalans had applied, and they have been waiting for a fair hearing ever
since.
But now that the waiting is nearly ended, their chances of being
granted asylum appear hardly better than in the 1980s. In fiscal 1996, the INS
approved only 3.1 percent of the Salvadoran and 8.6 percent of the Guatemalan
non-ABC cases, compared to 21.6 percent granted for all nationalities
combined.
And thanks to new immigration restrictions that went into effect
on April Fools' Day, most of those who are denied asylum will have no other
means of avoiding deportation even though many have resided responsibly in the
United States for a decade or longer.
The new laws eliminate suspension of deportation, a form of relief
leading to lawful permanent resident status for undocumented immigrants of good
moral character who had lived continuously in the United States for at least
seven years and would experience extreme hardship if deported.
Under the new laws, suspension is replaced by "cancellation of
removal." It requires 10 years of continuous residence and "exceptional and
extremely unusual hardship" if deported -- hardship not to the immigrants
themselves, but to family members who are U.S. citizens or lawful permanent
residents.
To say that deportation to El Salvador and Guatemala would be a
hardship for ABC class members and their families is an understatement. Despite
the peace accords, death squads and street gangs continue to take their revenge
in both countries, placing these nations among the most violent in the world.
The rate of homicides in El Salvador -- 114 per 100,000 persons compared to the
U.S. rate of 11 per 100,000 -- outpaces the rate of killing during the
Salvadoran civil war.
Well over half of Salvadorans live in poverty, while in Guatemala
66 percent of the work force is unemployed or underemployed and 75 to 85
percent of the population live in extreme poverty. More than half of El
Salvador's national income comes from money sent by relatives in the United
States, many of whom are ABC asylum seekers.
To flood these unstable countries with thousands of returning
refugees will only worsen these problems, place lives at risk and undermine the
fragile peace initiatives that are not yet fully realized.
President Clinton and Congress can prevent this injustice by
granting lawful permanent resident status to all ABC class members now. Now is
the time to flood our elected officials with letters and phone calls, demanding
that justice be done.
Demetria Martinez lives in Tucson, Ariz.
National Catholic Reporter, April 18,
1997
|