S&S - Immigration reprieves can be long lasting

From my archive of press clippings:

Stars and Stripes

Immigration reprieves can be long lasting

By David Fleshler, Sun Sentinel

Stars and Stripes online edition, Saturday, January 23, 2010

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — In the winter of 1998, after Hurricane Mitch devastated Central America, the Clinton administration offered short-term legal residency to about 150,000 undocumented Nicaraguans and Hondurans already living in the United States.

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

""It is a temporary status," Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner Doris Meissner told reporters in announcing the decision. "The work authorizations will be issued only for 18 months. It is breathing room."

Today about 83,100 of them are still here, as succeeding administrations granted extension after extension of their right to live and work in the United States. They remain under what is called Temporary Protected Status, the same program offered this week to an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 Haitians in the United States at the time of the Jan. 12 earthquake.

About 350,000 foreign nationals already live in the United States under the program, created by Congress in 1990 to offer a haven to people who may not meet the legal definition of refugee."

&

"Those Haitians who do obtain permission to stay will join thousands of people from five countries living in the United States under Temporary Protected Status. Salvadorans account for the largest number, with 266,000 granted residency after a 2001 earthquake.

Others include Hondurans and Nicaraguans allowed to stay after Hurricane Mitch and 950 Somalis and Sudanese granted temporary residency because of their countries' civil wars."

_____
Staff writer Alexia P. Campbell contributed to this report.