Clinton Seeks to Ease Deportation Concerns

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica — Meeting with the leaders of Central American countries Thursday, President Clinton addressed their concerns over a new U.S. immigration law, pledging to delay enforcement of the provision that most worries them and to press Congress to soften the impact on their nationals living in the United States.

The Central American leaders fear that the new law may spark mass deportations of their countrymen who fled during unrest and war in the 1980s, when their region was used as a battleground in the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union.

The president stressed that the estimated 300,000 Central American immigrants who could be subject to deportation under the new law deserve special consideration because of the U.S. role in the turmoil that forced them from their homes.

He promised that there will be no mass deportations and that each case will be dealt with humanely.

“After all, the United States government was heavily involved with a lot of these countries during all this upheaval,” Clinton said during an afternoon news conference with the leaders of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic. “It seems to me we ought to be sensitive to the disruptions that were caused during those tough years that we were involved in as a nation.”

The issue is particularly acute in Los Angeles, the center of the Salvadoran and Guatemalan exile population. Social service groups have reported being besieged by inquiries from panicked Central American immigrants, many of whom have American-born children and fear separation.

Clinton’s visit here marked the first time an American president has participated in a summit of Central American leaders since 1968. As the news conference began at the ornate National Theater, Clinton and each of the region’s leaders signed the Declaration of San Jose, pledging a new partnership in the areas of trade, environment and migration in order to bolster the Central American countries’ democratic governments and free-market economies.

That support was a key reason for the state visit.

“The old relationship that we have had in the past is no longer the one that can most benefit us in the world of a globalized economy,” Clinton said.

The president also took pains to highlight the dramatic changes in countries that largely have not been on newspaper front pages or network news since coups and guerrilla warfare in the 1980s.

“When the history of our region and our time is written, it will record your courage and your strength in ending four decades of conflict, braving the threat of bombs and bullets to cast ballots, embracing the challenge of economic reform and opening the door to a new era of partnership among all our nations,” Clinton said during a morning welcoming ceremony in a sunny plaza in front of the 100-year-old National Theater in downtown San Jose.

Although immigration was the hottest issue at the summit, the leaders also focused on trade.

“Open skies” agreements with Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua were signed to increase potential commercial air travel between the U.S. and the region.

Clinton stressed that in his new budget he requested $2 billion for an expansion of the Caribbean Basin Initiative to give the Central American and Caribbean nations preferable tariffs on a handful of additional goods, including tuna, leather and textiles.

The initiative, started under the Ronald Reagan administration, already gives the region special status on many other goods.

The Central American leaders are pressing for the same trade relationship with the United States that Canada and Mexico have under the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Although there is resistance in Congress to expanding NAFTA, Clinton reiterated a pledge he made at the Summit of the Americas in Miami three years ago to create a free-trade region across the Americas by 2005.

But it was worries over the impact of the sweeping immigration law that Clinton signed last year that got the most attention.

On Thursday, Clinton told the Central American leaders that he will not trigger the law until the end of September, giving him time to work with Congress on establishing special consideration for people from the region.