Thread: Immigrants get extended stay

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Immigrants get extended stay


By DANIEL GILBERT
dgilbert@manassasjm.com
Tuesday, February 28, 2006



President Bush extended a temporary worker visa by 12 months for 300,000 undocumented immigrants Friday, in consideration of natural disasters that have stricken Central America in the last year.

Nationals from Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador -- who at 225,000 are the largest beneficiaries -- can take advantage of the extension of Temporary Protected Status, which allows them to renew a legal permit to work.

The extension applies only to Nicaraguans and Hondurans who have resided in the U.S. since Dec. 30, 1998, and Salvadorians present since 2001.

TPS was created by Congress in 1990 to address the needs of foreign nationals whose home countries were in turmoil, either because of armed conflict, the effects of a natural disaster, or other "extraordinary and temporary conditions."

TPS was initially granted to Nicaragua and Honduras in the wake of Hurricane Mitch in 1998. A press release from the Justice Department in 1998 cited "death, displacement and damage in Honduras and Nicaragua" as creating "extraordinary temporary conditions."

President Bush accorded El Salvador the same status in 2001, after two devastating earthquakes in consecutive months.

Lobbying for an extension of TPS was one of the items on the agenda of Elias Antonio Saca, the president of El Salvador, who visited President Bush last week.

"I think this is good news for the Salvadorian community in the U.S.," said Rene Leon, El Salvador's ambassador to the U.S. "It will ease anxiety among Salvadorians, Hondurans and Nicaraguans."

Leon said he was "pretty much confident" of an extension, but there had been some doubt after members of the Bush administration discussed discontinuing El Salvador's TPS status. He declined to discuss TPS status beyond September 2007, when the extension will be up for evaluation.

To gain TPS status in the case of natural disasters, the leader of a country must petition the U.S. government for help. The State Department then evaluates the country's needs and informs the Department of Homeland Security, which makes the final determination.

Friday marked the sixth extension of TPS for Honduras and Nicaragua, and the fourth for El Salvador.

Four other countries, all African, are currently designated as TPS: Burundi, Liberia, Somalia and Sudan.

Guatemala and Colombia have also applied for TPS, according to Dan Kane, a spokesman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

"We are monitoring the situation, and no decision has been made," Kane said of Guatemala. The situation in Colombia, he said, has stabilized.

Peter Eisenhauer, a spokesman for the State Department, could not confirm that Guatemala or Colombia had applied, but added that Haiti applied in 2004, following Tropical Storm Jean.

The news made little splash on some beneficiaries, like Francisco Flores, a native of El Salvador who arrived in the U.S. in 2000. Flores said he would not renew his worker permit.

"This country consumes you. It gives and it takes away" said Flores, who plans return to El Salvador this year, where his wife and five children live.

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