Mr. Chairman. I rise in strong support of H.R. 618. a bill to suspend the deportation of Salvadorans and Nicaraguans while the GAO makes a study of the conditions existing in those countries. This is not a vote for or against United States policy in the region. We will have ample opportunity to do that another time. This bill seeks to bring consistency and fairness into our immigration policy. It will. in effect. afford Nicaraguan and Salvadoran refugees the same status we afford refugees from Afghanistan. Ethiopia. Poland. and Uganda. And H.R. 618 responds on a humanitarian level by suspending a policy where refugees are sent back to warravaged countries. often at great peril. Why would one oppose this measure? Opponents generally cite two reasons. First. oponents point to the unfairness in granting special exception to these two countries. It works against progress made in both immigration bills in 1980 and 1985. But. we have already cited examples of where exceptions have been made for the simple reason that it was in our interests to grant them. And so should be the case with H.R. 618. To install a principle of "no special exceptions" is to straightjacket ourselves. and. if applied as a general rule. would probably bring business on Capitol Hill to a grinding halt. For those who oppose such special treatment. the truth of the matter is that current policy already includes a great deal of special treatment at the discretion of the immigration and naturalization service. Eightyeight percent of the requests for asylum filed by Nicaraguans are approved. For Salvadorans seeking asylum the figure is 3 percent. For those who argue against special exceptions. they must look very hard at current policy that grants asylum to better than 4 out of every 5 Nicaraguans who aply and at the same time approves requests for 3 out of every 100 Salvadorans.
Keywords matched
immigration naturalization seeking asylum deportation refugees