Correspondents' Correspondence Unsafe Refuge
COHEN, BARRY MENDEL
Correspondents' Correspondence BRIEF TAKEOUTS OF MORE THAN PERSONAL INTEREST FROM LETTERS AND OTHER COMMUNICATIONS RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS Unsafe Refuge Dallas—Salvadorans attempting to find...
...Judge File-mon Vela of Brownsville, Texas, who found that the INS prevented attorneys from consulting with their clients in the detention centers, has issued a similar ruling...
...Government that its apparent failure to grant asylum to any significant number of Salvadorans, coupled with continuing large-scale forcible and voluntary return to El Salvador, would appear to represent a negation of its responsibilities assumed upon its adherence to the Protocol [on refugees...
...Whatever happens in the courts, the Salvadoran refugees may be rescued by Congress...
...Correspondents' Correspondence BRIEF TAKEOUTS OF MORE THAN PERSONAL INTEREST FROM LETTERS AND OTHER COMMUNICATIONS RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS Unsafe Refuge Dallas—Salvadorans attempting to find refuge from their civil war by fleeing to the United States have been receiving little welcome here...
...visa expired...
...all too often they are not...
...This would allow the Salvadorans to stay in the U.S...
...A bill sponsored by Representative Ted Weiss (D.-N...
...The INS is appealing both decisions...
...Until this expansion occurs, families will continue to be divided, with the men kept at the camp, the women in the Harlingen jail, and the children in a juvenile detention center...
...Recently, recreational facilities have helped to alleviate the harshness of Los Fresnos...
...Twice refused political asylum, he became discouraged and agreed to be sent home...
...The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, it said, "should continue to express his concern to the U.S...
...In a sweeping decision handed down last April 30, Judge David Kenyon of Los Angeles ruled that the INS was in violation of not only the UN Protocol but our own Refugee Act of 1980 as well, not to mention the Constitution...
...But 1 cannot forget the case of a young medical student whose U.S...
...When TV reporter Doug Fox of WFAA Dallas toured there in April 1982, he filmed the detainees playing a hot game of volleyball...
...Meanwhile, the deportations continue...
...In fiscal 1981 alone, 15,940 were apprehended by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), and 10,473 were flown "home" at $333 per person courtesy of the taxpayer...
...A large number of those caught by the INS are detained at the Los Fresnos refugee camp in Texas...
...The bill is now pending in the House Subcommitte on Immigration, Refugees and International Law, though, and is unlikely to be acted upon until the next Congress...
...It further maintains—as the government's attorney argued before Judge Kenyon?that the agency has no control over the actions of its employees...
...Perhaps this was in response to a February 1982 preliminary report of the UN Office for Refugees, which noted that Los Fresnos lacked such features...
...He ordered that all Central American refugees be informed of their right to political asylum, and that each case be judged on its merits...
...Although well-fed and reasonably well-treated by an overworked and underequipped staff, they must remain in the hot, mosquito-plagued outdoors during all daylight hours unless the weather is very bad...
...Y.) would grant them "extended voluntary departure...
...Places not too much better are now part of the entire illegal alien detention system in theU.S., from Miami to El Centro, California...
...Two Federal judges also believe that the United States is not treating the refugees properly...
...The UN report, of course, spoke of more serious problems than volleyball...
...It claims that it is too difficult toprocess so many applications...
...The open-air camps set up in France for those fleeing the Spanish Civil War were the scandal of their time...
...The money has yet to be used...
...as long as they want to or until there is a change in the San Salvador regime...
...Perhaps as many as 200,000 have left El Salvador and headed north up the coast of Mexico right into the Rio Grande Valley of Texas over the last three years...
...Since May 1981 atotal of seven Salvadorans have been granted asylum, 265,000 were turned down, and 8,393 cases are pending...
...He was arrested and beheaded by the military authorities.—Barry Mendel Cohen...
...Sometimes families are reassembled before being sent back to El Salvador...
...Stories of atrocities committed by the Left in El Salvador abound...
...According to the deputy director of the INS in Harlingen, where Los Fresnos is located, the agency was given an appropriation in 1979 for expanding the camp and for installing air conditioning there...
Vol. 65 • November 1982 • No. 20
