President. it was not the intent of Congress to have this 1996 legislation retroactively apply to the people in these circumstances. I believe that Congress tried to avoid changing the standard retroactively. We specifically provided that. generally speaking. the old rules are supposed to be applied to people in deportation proceedings before April 1. 1997. the effective date of the act. The problem is the INS has interpreted the act as saying that many of the Central Americans were not in deportation proceedings before that time and. hence. it has to apply the tougher new standards to them. Now. the basis on which this determination was made by the INS. I believe.
Keywords matched
deportation