Speech #980179828

I ask unanimous consent that I be added as a cosponsor of S. 2131 despite having a number of reservations about this legislation as it exists in its present form. Due to the urgency of the current situation In El Salvador. I believe that it is essential that we come to grips with what I feel is a serious human rights and Immigration problemthe treatment of Salvadorans who have sought sanctuary in this country. Today. it would be most accurate to characterize the U.S. Governments approach to these Salvadorans as haphazard and contradictory. As has been stated in a recent editorial in the Minneapolis Star & Tribune. the U.S. Governments criteria for categorizing Salvadorans seeking sanctuary is highly subjective: In the U.S. Governments eyes. the Salvadoran immigrants fall into two categories. A few fear being singled out for persecution. and possibly execution. if forced to return to their country. They receive political asylum if they show that their fears are Justified. The remainder are classified as economic migrants who come in search of jobs * * 0 The Salvadorans and those who work on their behalf challenge the governments two categories. In their view. most Salvadorans come to the United States for a third reasonto escape violence that in four years had claimed more than 3C..000 civilian lives from a population about the size of Wisconsins. Both the State Department and Amnesty International have amassed numerous testimonies of violence in El Salvador. Their investigations have shown repeatedly that those individuals who are relatives of death squad victims or who have condemned human rights abuses in El Salvador. face a special threat to their wellbeing. Additionally. those who have entered the United States illegally have been arrested by the INS. and deported may well risk their lives by returning to El Salvador. Finally. and perhaps most important. even those who would not necessarily qualify for asylum or refugee status are understandably fearful of returning to a country in which warfare is a daily fact of life. Regardless of whether an individual Salvadoran is subject to the attention of death squads or guerrilla murder teams. he certainly may face simply being caught in the crossfire of a pitched battle. After 4 years of civil war in which most Salvadorans who have fled the conflict for the United States have remained in a sort of bureaucratic limbo.