Yes, an 18-Month Extension

The war in El Salvador killed 75,000 people and displaced hundreds of thousands more. Many of the displaced people came to the United States seeking safe refuge, something that was denied to them at home at least partly because the Reagan and Bush administrations supported the Salvadoran military in waging a bitter war against leftists.

When the U.S. support helped prolong the civil war, the money sent by refugees to relatives in their homeland proved to be a vital help to that nation’s war-torn economy. So in 1990 the U.S. Congress agreed to grant illegal immigrants from El Salvador a special refugee status for 18 months.

That status was extended for another 18 months by President Bush in 1992, and next month it will come before President Clinton for renewal. Unless another extension is granted, about 185,000 Salvadoran refugees, 74,000 of them living in the Los Angeles area, will have to return to their country.

Although things are better in El Salvador today than they were two years ago, thanks to a shaky U.N.-brokered peace agreement, the sudden return of so many people to a war-ravaged nation is not advisable.

Clinton should extend the refugee status still another 18 months, at least until after elections are held in El Salvador in 1994.

If these immigrants were returned to their country a good part of the approximately $800 million they annually send home would stop, causing severe economic stress in the Central American nation. That could refuel conflict, forcing a new influx of refugees to the United States. Some human rights activists also fear that returning refugees would be in considerable danger in El Salvador, where the military is smarting after being forced to accept civilian control. Many of the refugees now in the United States fled the parts of El Salvador where the fighting was heaviest.

There are already large numbers of illegal immigrants and other foreigners here, of course. And no one is proposing that an 18-month extension be a subterfuge for unofficial permanent residency. That would set a precedent that would undermine the credibility of future temporary extensions. But President Clinton cannot overlook the fact that the Salvadorans are a very special case.