Thread: Salvadorans slow to re-register visas

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Salvadorans slow to re-register visas
By DANIEL GILBERT
dgilbert@manassasjm.com
Tuesday, August 1, 2006


Salvadoran nationals with a temporary visa in the U.S. are dragging their feet to re-register, in spite of urging by both the U.S. and their own government not to delay.

With one month left to re-apply for Temporary Protected Status, only 50,000 out of the 225,000 current visa holders had done so by Monday, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Even that number, which USCIS officials consider alarmingly low, has climbed significantly since last Wednesday, when the agency had received just 30,761 applications.

If TPS-holders do not re-up by Sept. 1, they will lose their legal status, and could be deported.

"We want to send a very clear message to all Salvadorans that they need to apply as soon as possible," said Dan Kane, a USCIS spokesman who keeps tabs on the TPS applications as they come in.

The relatively few applications from Salvadoran beneficiaries parallel the re-registration process of the country's Central American neighbors, Honduras and Nicaragua, whose nationals also benefit from the temporary status.

The great majority of Hondurans and Nicaraguans re-applied in a rush at the end of the registration period in June, after sparking intense concern from their respective governments and USCIS.

Kane suspects Salvadorans with TPS are delaying for some of the same reasons as their Honduran and Nicaraguan counterparts: difficulty scraping together the $250 for the application, a little summer laziness and possibly the belief that Congress will pass a reform legalizing millions of undocumented immigrants.

Ana Margarita Chavez, the consul-general of El Salvador, had a different explanation.

"Salvadorans are addicted to soccer," she said, chalking up a slow start to the World Cup, widely viewed by Hispanics.

Otherwise, she's not sure what to make of the USCIS figures.

"We've already surpassed our previous record," she said of the Washington consulate's mailing 1,624 TPS applications in the first month.

The efforts to re-register TPS-holders, from Chavez's point of view, have been "a complete success."

The government of El Salvador and its 16 consulates in the U.S. have made re-registering their citizens with TPS a priority.

Across the country, consulates are open seven days a week, and sending mobile teams to reach areas remote from a consulate.

The consulate in Woodbridge fielded such a team two Sundays ago in Manassas.

Chavez spent last Sunday assisting applicants in Langley Park, Md., where she and other consular officials helped 140 parties complete their applications.

Kane, however, maintains that the 50,000 applications his office has received - half the amount the agency received at this stage of the re-registration period for the previous extension of TPS - is reason for concern.

The seriousness the Salvadoran government accords to TPS is evident in a blunt passage written by Salvadoran president Antonio Saca, in a pamphlet distributed by the consulates.

"It is necessary that all the beneficiaries of the TPS re-register to stay in this country with a work permit," reads the bold text. "Failing to re-register could put them in danger of being deported."

Did I read that correctly that they think these people might not be renewing their visas because they are either watching or playing soccer ???

If soccer is more important than being here legally, why are paying people to go out beating the bushes to get them registered????