Chertoff calls for end to ban on deporting Salvadorans

[The Straight Story]

Chertoff calls for end to ban on deporting Salvadorans

By Jonathan Marino
[e-mail]
Homeland Security Department Secretary Michael Chertoff on Wednesday said Congress must immediately act to end a decades-old provision that prohibits Salvadorans from being deported.

After four months of inaction in court following the department's filing of a motion to quash the provision, Chertoff said, DHS now is counting on lawmakers. He would like to see legislation passed to eliminate a 1980s injunction preventing deportation of Salvadorans in the United States illegally. The civil war leading to the injunction ended in the early 1990s.

"I believe there ought to be widespread support" on Capitol Hill for the legislation, which is yet to be proposed, Chertoff told reporters. "I would like to see it passed before the midterm elections... the civil war in El Salvador is over."

From mid-May to mid-July, more than 3,700 Salvadorans were arrested and released under DHS' old catch-and-release policy. But, with the end that program, Chertoff warned that these illegal immigrants are filling already-crowded detention centers.

http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=34839&dcn=todaysnews