Seeking sanctuary
Gibney, Mark
was quoted as saying, " I think there's been a certain evolution in his thinking." Arthur Krock noted the damage bipartisanship inflicted upon the Republican party during the Truman...
...E LLIOT ABRAMS, Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, defends the denial of relief to Salvadorans this way: "There are dozens of wars, civil wars and insurgencies in the world today, and almost all are in the third world . . . . Those who ask that all Salvadoran migrants be allowed to stay in the United States indefinitely must explain why the same treatment is not deserved by all other migrants from poor violent societies to our south -- now and in coming years " (N.Y...
...Surely some Salvadorans are here for economic reasons, but to avoid seriously looking at the claims of those who are fleeing for political and safety reasons smacks of the worst form of insensitivity...
...The whole tenor of Abrams's argument totally overlooks the very close (and growing) military and economic connection between the U.S...
...government will not...
...Empirical studies have shown that many "normal flow" immigrants come to this country solely for economic advancement...
...Moreover, we not only do not distinguish between economic backgrounds, but the administrative term "economic migrant" allows the U.S...
...The changes in legislative language, however, have not brought about any changes in policy practice...
...Canada and Mexico do not owe a special duty to the innocent citizens of El Salvador...
...Sanctuary" seems to be the first crack in this assumption...
...What has forced so many Salvadorans, and also so many _9 law-abiding U.S...
...This program is really extended non-departure...
...Reagan has not yet made a convincing case that it should...
...If one did not know better one would think, from Abrams's remarks, that as far as the U.S...
...Salvadoran refugees SEEKING SANCTUARY A SPECIAL DUTY FOR THE U.S...
...If our weapons and military training kill people _9 in El Salvador, why should we be surprised, or angered, when those lucky to survive come to this country...
...are surely economic migrants because, they argue, asylum is possible (for how long and for how many is uncertain) in Canada and Mexico...
...The specter of hordes of migrants coming into this country has long been an effective tool in keeping many ethnic groups out...
...The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has recognized Salvadorans as a group as refugees, and so have our neighbors to the north and south, Canada and Mexico...
...should owe a special duty of protection to the citizens of nations where the U.S...
...Neither has offered a glimmer of hope...
...They cannot be abandoneo or surrendered...
...To date, the federal government has avoided taking a serious look at the claims individual Salvadorans can present b.y (1) generally treating all Salvadorans as economic migrants, and (2) maintaining an asylum/ refugee iaolicy that is still mired in the East-West conflict...
...Commonweal: 296...
...My answer, it should be obvious, is yes, and I base my argument on the idea that innocents (in a war situation or otherwise) have a basic right not to be harmed or killed...
...Chinese Exclusion Case 130 U.S...
...to ignore the domestic setting and internal differences between each of these, and other, countries...
...This special duty arises from the fact of heavy U.S...
...is either waging a war or materially (in the literal and figurative sense) aiding in the perpetuation of a war...
...A special duty (as opposed to a general duty of care) is much less discernible in the Haitian situation...
...11, 1949...
...Otherwise law-abiding citizens are risking upwards of five years in jail and maximum fines of $2000 in order to provide humanitarian assistance to these Salvadorans...
...T HE LAST QUESTION that I will address is whether the "Sanctuary" program can be morally justified or not...
...As a general rule we would not want individuals or groups of individuals making their own alien admission policy...
...for economic and not political reasons...
...Gne of the ironies of this scorn for economic migrants is the fact that economic considerations seem to play a very large part in our legal channels of alien admissions...
...and in many cases they must be preserved irrespective of whether they are true or false...
...The wrong assumptions are being made and the wrong questions are being asked...
...Last year the State Department granted asylum status to only 200 Salvadorans...
...The message from the Reagan administration is clear - - if we allow any substantial number of Salvadorans into this country we will have to take them all in...
...to portray these people as wanting to take the bread off our tables...
...is concerned E1 Salvador is just another turbulent banana republic...
...With the passage of the Refugee Act of 1980 Congress made an ostensible effort to get away from the ideologically dominated refugee policies of the past...
...Contrary to this, the stated purpose of the Refugee Act was to look at "the plight of the refugee" herself...
...Times, August 5, 1983...
...Seventy-seven percent of the Haitian population exists on less than $150 per year, but this label of economic migrant allows the U.S...
...MARK GIBNEY (Mark Gibney, currently doing dissertation work on U.S...
...policies in El Salvador a special duty to provide safety exists...
...The Reagan administration has tried to buttress its argument that those coming to the U.S...
...plemented fifteen times for groups such as Nicaraguans in 1979...
...Nowhere is this clearer than in the case of Salvadorans...
...Salvadorans have not fared any better under what is known A N ESTIMATED half million Salvadorans are currently in the United States illegally...
...In the past two decades extended voluntary departure has been im...
...Compare this with the 67 percent acceptance rate for Afghanis...
...At the present time extended voluntary departure has been denied to Salvadorans as a group, the rationale being that conditions in El Salvador are not unsafe...
...That is to say that what differentiates "Sanctuary" from a humanitarian program that would admit starving Haitians, for instance, is that (I) admission to this country might be the only way of providing the needed assistance (while providing food directly to Haitians might be sufficient aid), and 2) that because of current U.S...
...In addition, large numbers of the ref,,oees we admit (such as Vietnamese and Cuban nationals) . . . . e stated that they have migrated to the U.S...
...For example, the seventh preference for refugees in the 1965 Immigration Act limited its humanitarian scope to those fleeing Communist nations or countries in the Middle East...
...we do...
...history where individual citizens have carried out their own alien admission system for reasons other than economic gain...
...Cecil V. Crabb, Jr., in his classic study, Bipartisan Foreign Policy: Myth or Reality...
...What this argument completely overlooks is that the humanitarian actions of our neighbors should serve as an embarrassment to our policies, not a justification for them...
...Arthur Krock noted the damage bipartisanship inflicted upon the Republican party during the Truman administration, precluding Republicans from freely attacking budgetarY and tax policies: "This situation robs an opposition party of a definite program to deal with an alarming condition, and of an effective claim for being returned to office" (New York Times, Nov...
...owes a special duty of protection to Salvadorans who are fleeing the civil war in that country...
...No effort is made to distinguish the economic situations of these people...
...What this means is that all Salvadorans are presumed to come to this country merely for economic advancement...
...1957), states that in evaluating the extent to which bipartisanship is possible in foreign policy, "it must be remembered that the case for two-party cooperation rests in large measure upon a myth . . . . The myth alluded to here is that the problems confronting the nation may be clearly divided into foreign and domestic questions, and that while the former must be approached on a bipartisan basis, the latter are properly left to the interplay of partisan influences...
...In accordance with this new approach, these geographical restrictions were eliminated...
...The church-based "Sanctuary" program simply recognizes that special duty...
...The list of refugee admissions and grants of asylum are still dominated by those from Communist countries...
...What marks the "Sanctuary" program is that individual citizens are having to recognize this special duty to Salvadorans because the U.S...
...citizens, to follow the illegal route has been the fact that the legal channels have all been closed...
...Within a world of interdependent communication, financing, and trade, the myth of the separation of foreign and domestic issues cannot be easily preserved...
...involvement in the implementation of that war...
...Nations simply cannot function this way...
...The federal government has found that the simplest way of having to make a close scrutiny of the claims of Salvadorans is to label them as "economic migrants...
...A sizable portion have been aided or housed by a growing number of church groups in this country who are participating in a program known as "Sanctuary...
...To summarize, the U.S...
...If this nation's actions threaten this basic right then it should owe a special duty to rectify this wrong...
...Many Saivadorans do not seek asylum, with good reason...
...INS data show that in 1983 only 6 percent of the Salvadorans who applied for asylum were granted it...
...lawfully -- asylum and extended voluntary departure...
...JEREMIAH BARUCH (Jeremiah Baruch is th e pseudonym of a Washington writer with a position in government...
...The House version of the proposed Simpson-Mazzoli bill has a provision in it for granting extended voluntary departure to Salvadorans...
...Crabb notes that "myths are not always false...
...In this observation, Mr...
...has not...
...Traditionally, under this program foreign citizens are allowed to remain in the U.S...
...quire it, cannot be granted away or restrained on behalf of anyone...
...and El Salvador...
...The powers of the government are delegated in trust to the United States, and are incapr n.- of transfer to any other parties...
...581, 609 (1888...
...Individuals fleeing from non-Communist countries have not fared nearly as well...
...Illegal Mexicans are also considered economic migrants and so are Haitian boat people...
...However, at present this does little good for the hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans whose status and safety remain uncertain...
...As the Supreme Court reasoned in one of the earliest immigration cases, "The power of exclusion of foreigners being an incident of sovereignty belonging to the government of the United States, as a part of those sovereign powers delegated by the Constitution, the fight to its exercise at any time when, in the judgment of the government, the interests of the country re18 May 1984:295 as "extended voluntary departure...
...alien admission policies, is a member of the bar in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia...
...The U.S...
...Krock also points to a further problem of bipartisanship, namely, that foreign policy issues necessarily entail domestic policy concerns as well...
...until civil disturbances in one's home country have subsided...
...There are essentially two legal avenues that Salvadorans could follow in their efforts to stay in the U.S...
...The second unique aspect present in this social phenomenon is that it represents one of the few instances in U.S...
...Abrams merely uses this age-old argument in a more subtle way...
...The question that should be raised is whether or not the U.S...
Vol. 111 • May 1984 • No. 10
