Mr. Speaker. I rise today in support of H.R. 2332. a bill to extend the deadline for Salvadoran immigrants to apply for temporary protected status from June 30. 1991 to October 31. 1991. Last year in the immigration bill. we established a temporary protected status [TPS immigration category to protect aliens in the United States whose lives would be endangered if they returned to homelands plagued to armed conflict. natural disaster or other circumstances. Recognizing the strife and dangers in wartom El Salvador. we specifically designated Salvadorans for TPS. This designation was the result of years of work by Chairman MOAKLEY. and I commend him for his commitment and dedication to Improving the lives of Salvadorans. Unfortunately. the Immigration and Naturalization Service [INS] moved agonizingly slowly In developing and publishing regulations on how to apply for TPS. Problems with fees set at unreasonably high levels by th3 INS further slowed the application process. The final regulations were not established until last month. and the deadline for Salvadorans to apply Is June 30. 1991. less than a week away. Many of the Salvadorans who came to this country Illegally did so because they rightly feared that if they remained In their country. they would be killed. Given the brutality of the Salvadoran civil war. their concerns are justified. We passed TPS for Salvadorans because we wanted to grant some measure of protection. The Salvadorans who qualify for TPS should have a full opportunity to apply for it. When we passed the TPS program with a series of application deadlines. we believed that the INS would and could implement the program rapidly enough to make the deadlines realistic. This has not been the case. Now that the final regulations have been released. we should extend the application deadline in order for the program to be given a chance to succeed.
Keywords matched
Immigration TPS temporary protected status Naturalization immigration immigrants