Chairman. let me repeat. the amendment would strike the provision that would grant extended voluntary departure to El Salvador. Lebanon. Liberia. and Kuwait illegals who are here for a period of 3 years. just a flatout grant of that kind of privilege. which the Immigration Service and the Justice Department could do nothing about. It would grandfather in all these folks and say. "You cant deport any of them for any reason." I think that is fundamentally unsound policy and it is fundamentally wrong to do that. We have laws on the books to deal with people who may be in reasonable fear of political persecution or religious persecution if they return to their countries of origin. Those laws on the books have been used time and again by the Immigration Service to protect those who are indeed in fear and could be jeopardized or harmed if they went back home. We would in this provision that has been put Into this bill adopt a procedure that we have never adopted before and is certainly not one that I think is good law or makes good sense. Last year we had a similar debate over this process. did not get it into law. but it was a bill that was out here to be debated that included in addition to El Salvador.
Keywords matched
Immigration