House Votes to Let Salvadorans and Others Stay

WASHINGTON — In a debate dominated by controversy over the Reagan Administration’s policies in Central America, the House voted Tuesday to temporarily block the deportation of more than 700,000 illegal immigrants from Nicaragua and El Salvador.

The measure, which was approved 237 to 181 on a largely partisan vote, now goes to the Senate, where Republicans have said it is likely to encounter strong opposition.

Temporary Asylum

Sponsors of the legislation--some of them referring to recent reports that Salvadoran death squads have kidnaped and raped politically outspoken refugees in Los Angeles--said the temporary asylum was less a political than a moral and humanitarian issue.

“People are fleeing the ravages of civil war and human rights violations in both of these countries,” said Rep. Joe Moakley (D-Mass.), who wrote the bill. “We in America bear responsibility for the conditions in these nations, and we cannot ignore the consequences.”

But opponents, including Rep. Daniel E. Lungren (R-Long Beach), charged that most of the nearly 500,000 Salvadoran refugees in this country came here in search of better jobs, not to escape persecution. He added that the bill violates the spirit of the nation’s new immigration law and would “open the floodgates” to similar requests by people from other countries.

Currently, the Reagan Administration’s standard for approving a request for asylum is that an individual demonstrate the likelihood of persecution should he return to his home country. The Administration has been granting virtually all requests by Nicaraguan refugees but is rejecting similar applications by Salvadorans.

White House officials have pointed to State Department reports that civilian deaths in El Salvador caused by political violence declined from more than 9,000 in 1981 to 251 in 1986. But, during an acrimonious debate, Moakley and others presented statistics indicating that there had been more than 1,700 shooting deaths linked to political violence in El Salvador last year.

Politics Charged

More important, they charged that the White House is playing politics with the issue by favoring refugees from Nicaragua, whose government it seeks to embarrass, but refusing to acknowledge similar turmoil in El Salvador, whose regime it supports.

“We can’t permit a political double standard on this, because none of us can argue that people who have fled El Salvador can go back to their homes safely, without reprisals,” said Rep. Barbara Boxer (D-Greenbrae).

“We know the FBI and Los Angeles Police Department are investigating reports that two Salvadoran women were attacked, one of them kidnaped and raped, by right-wing Salvadoran death squads in California,” she added. “How can we turn our back on these people?”

The proposed legislation would halt deportations of Nicaraguans and Salvadorans for two to three years, pending completion of a congressional report on human rights abuses and other problems faced by refugees who return to the two countries from the United States.

To qualify, refugees would have to prove that they entered the United States before Jan. 20, 1987. In addition, they would have to register with Immigration and Naturalization Service officials and agree in writing to return to their countries within nine months of the submission of the congressional report.

Ineligible for Aid

None of the Nicaraguan and Salvadoran immigrants would be considered permanent resident aliens, nor would the time they spend in the United States help them later gain citizenship. The refugees would be ineligible for most forms of federal public assistance, although they could receive Medicaid treatment for emergency purposes. The measure would also permit states and local governments to deny public assistance to the refugees.

Sponsors said there is ample precedent for such legislation, noting that the U.S. government has granted such asylum--known technically as “extended voluntary departure”--at least 14 times in the last 25 years to large groups of refugees fleeing persecution.

But Lungren said that enacting a special law for Nicaraguans and Salvadorans would set a “terrible precedent . . . . We worked hard, in drafting the new (immigration) law, not to single out any specific countries. This bill would unravel all of that.”

In addition, he questioned whether people fleeing El Salvador are the victims of persecution, noting that of the many illegal immigrants he has interviewed, “virtually all of those from El Salvador said they had come here for economic reasons. They came here for better jobs.”