Who in the Chamber has not heard accounts of atrocities. random violence. and deliberate sabotage committed by both sides in the conflict in El Salvador and committed against innocent civilians? The U.S. High Commissioner for Refugees determined in its September 1981 study that the large number of Salvadorans who enter the United States illegally is causally related to the internal strife in El Salvador. and comparison of INS yearly totals of Salvadorans in this country helps to confirm this determination. Yet. the State Department ignores this evidence in favor of a carefully tailored. impersonal overview of the situation in El Salvador. At the end of the fiscal year 1982. there were 22.314 Salvadorans waiting in the United States for their claims of asylum to be decided. Since 1980. of the only 1.300 asylum requests decided. INS has granted approximately 6 percent. Through deportation. voluntary departure. or voluntary withdrawal. INS has sent over 24.000 Salvadorans back to their war torn country. This means that every month we send more than 600 people back to a situation where their lives are in imminent danger. either from random or intentional violence. The granting of blanket periods of voluntary departure is not a particularly unusual means for the State Department to deal with immigrants from nations under the throes of civil war. For varying lengths of time aliens from Ethiopia. Uganda.
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Refugees asylum requests immigrants deportation