Speech #1050082969

Nicaraguans. Salvadorans. and Guatemalans fleeing the civil wars in their home countries started coming to the United States. Many of them made asylum claims. many of which were improperly denied as the U.S. Government acknowledged by ordering them readjudicated. In the case of Nicaraguans. this was done through the Nicaraguan review program established by Ronald Reagan. And in the case of Salvadorans and Guatemalans this was done through settlement of the ABC class lawsuit agreed to by the Bush administration. A huge backlog of asylum claims. however. then prevented their cases from being reheard for many years. Meanwhile. various temporary statuses allowed the members of this group to avoid deportation. In addition. they received authorization to work legally in the United States. During that time many members of that group established strong roots in this country. Under immigration law. there has long been available a procedure called "suspension of deportation" for an individual found to be of good character and who has been here for 7 years to adjust to legal status if deporting that individual would cause "extreme hardship" to the person or his or her immediate legal present relative. This requires a casebycase adjudication that the person being granted this benefit meets the legal standard. Because of the asylum backlog and because conditions in the individuals home country had changed since the filing of their original asylum claims. the Department of Justice under President Clinton encouraged these central Americans to seek suspension of deportation rather than continuing to press their asylum claims or file a new lawsuit. Again. the point that I am trying to make here in laying out this history is that each step along the way this group of individuals has complied with the rules that existed at the time. In fact. we went to the extent that we encouraged these people to file for suspension of deportation. and it would just be fundamentally unfair at this point if we were to change the rules on these people who in fact have been trying to live by the rules every day that they have been here. Several other points. The reason why we believe this is important is because we believe that this in essence will deny these people the right to due process under laws with respect to suspension of deportation. I want to emphasize to my colleagues that this is not amnesty. and there is nothing automatic here. Let us assume for a moment that this amendment were to pass. We are not guaranteeing anybody anything other than the fact that they will have to comply with the rules as they existed at the time they came into the process of suspension of deportation. Again. I want to emphasize to my colleagues that this is not amnesty. Every person affected by my amendment is merely being given a chance for due process. to have their case heard. They must still meet the criteria to be granted suspension of deportation. In addition. my amendment is focused only upon an identifiable group. There are those who want to create the impression that if this amendment passes literally millions of people. millions of illegal immigrants will use this as a loophole to remain in the country. This is an extremely identifiable group. And. again. working with the INS. we have concluded that there are probably in the neighborhood of 316.000 individuals that would be included in the group. and of that 316.000 it is likely that 150.000 will receive suspension of deportation. Again. I make the point that we ought to pass this amendment from the perspective of fairness.