For Years, U.S. Has Renewed Amnesty for 312,000

Every 18 months, Jeremias Villalobos dutifully pays about $300 in fees, fills out several U.S. government forms and buys himself another year and a half of peace.

Since 1998, when the Riverdale truck driver applied for the "temporary" amnesty granted illegal immigrants from three Central American countries because of devastating earthquakes and hurricanes there, his right to remain here has almost expired -- and then been extended -- at least six times.

"I give thanks to God each time," said Villalobos, 40, a native of Honduras who gradually saved up enough money to buy a house and paint each room a favorite color while sending about $100 a month to the children he has not seen in a decade. "Only by staying here can I afford to send my daughter to school," he said. "If I were home, she might be working in the fields with me."

While Congress has struggled rancorously this month over what to do with the country's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants, the Bush administration has kept renewing permission for 312,000 Central Americans -- including tens of thousands of people in the District, Maryland and Virginia -- to remain here under "temporary protected status."

Last month, the Department of Homeland Security announced it would extend the amnesty yet again, setting various deadlines this summer for qualified immigrants from Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador to register. The original rationale for the protection -- the natural disasters of a decade ago -- has long since passed, but officials said conditions in the countries had not improved enough that the United States could end the amnesty.

Diplomats from the region said last week that although collapsed bridges have been rebuilt and flattened crops replanted, the economies of the countries are still suffering and the largely impoverished populations remain heavily reliant on money sent from relatives working in the United States.

The worst nightmare of Central America's governments would be to have that cash flow from the north -- amounting to about $10 billion a year -- cut off and replaced by a tide of returning, jobless families.

"Honduras was devastated by Hurricane Mitch, and even though so much time has passed, we are still feeling the effects," said Roberto Flores Bermudez, the Honduran ambassador to the United States. "We are doing well in terms of macroeconomic indicators, but 60 percent of the people live below the poverty level, and we do not have the social conditions that would permit 78,000 people to come back."

Many other pockets of Latin America, from Mexico to Brazil, are just as poor, but close economic and political partnerships with the United States give Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador extra clout in Washington. El Salvador contributed troops to the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, and El Salvador and Honduras strongly endorsed a U.S.-backed Central American trade agreement.

"This is a win-win situation for both sides," said Ana Margarita Chavez, the Salvadoran consul general in Washington. "Of course our people send money home, but no one talks about their economic benefits to the U.S. They are doing the hard, heavy work others do not want. They have given themselves to the country that welcomed them."

One of the most divisive aspects of the congressional debate on immigration has been a proposal to grant legal status to millions of illegal immigrants, most of whom are from Mexico and Central America. Although the plan would require immigrants to pay expensive fees and spend years earning legal status, opponents have tarred it as a form of amnesty for people who had broken the law by entering the country without permission.

Large numbers of Central Americans here have already benefited from a series of amnesties. Since the 1980s, when civil conflicts erupted in their homelands and the United States became involved in battling leftist movements there, more than half a million refugees in the United States illegally have been granted protection from deportation.