Speech #1000080251

Chairman. there have been several arguments made by the opposition that have been repeated and repeated. I think it is worth a couple of moments to examine some of them. One argument is that H.R. 618 undermines the Refugee Act of 1980. That legislation is recognized. and rightly applauded for affording humanitarian relief to all aliens seeking asylum and stopping the practice of favoring asylum applications filed by aliens from particular countries. If you look at what has happened to applications by Salvadorans for asylum. it is in fact the present administrations policy with respect to those applications that has gotten countryspecific. It is the systematic denial of those applications that the legislation offered by the gentleman from Massachusetts seeks to address at this point. It does not grant refugee status. It grants a temporary stay of deportation for 2 years. deportation to a country where 16.000 people have already been killed in a bitter civil war. deportation to another country. its neighbor. where there is dramatic and systematic violation of human rights. It is for that particular purpose that this legislation has been introduced. It is also argued. and the gentleman from New York made the argument most recently. that the Salvadorans are not facing mass deportations. and therefore. the implication we are asked to draw is that there is no need for the legislation. The fact is. and there are several points to make here. first that the fear of deportation haunts those people terribly. You can see it in any conversations you have with anyone from the Salvadoran community. Second. I personally went and visited the detention center at El Centro and talked to hundreds of people at this detention center which is filled with Salvadoran immigrants. These people have a very. very direct fear of deportation. and they are being imprisoned at the present time and detained pending their applications for asylee status. Third. we have employer sanctions. People without work authorization will not be able to get jobs. The fact that mass deportations may not be taking place does not change the fact that as of this point in time. these hundreds of thousands of people have no work authorizations. and it becomes a form of economic de facto deportation to say that the absence of mass deportations causes us to dismiss this bill. The bill is a compelling piece of legislation. It is not consistent with the legislation we passed last year. In fact. this House put it into that legislation last year. We are not eliminating other categories of illegal immigration. We are not telling Soviet Jews or Poles that you could go to Mexico or some other country in Europe. This country has a heritage and tradition.