On June 24th, Federal District Court Judge James Lawrence King issued a preliminary injunction and blocked the US government’s efforts to deport upwards of 60,000 Nicaraguans and others from Latin America who initially entered the US in the decade of the 1980s as a result of civil strife in their home countries. The judge cited a number of instances where deportation would cause extreme hardship for families need special medical assistance or having US-born citizen children. According to Judge King:
“Seldom if ever has such a dramatic, heart-rending and powerfully persuasive case of irreparable harm to literally tens of thousands of human beings been presented to the federal court.”
In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan created a special status category for more than 40,000 Nicaraguans fleeing the communist regime. The Nicaraguans were allowed to work here though there immigration status was never settled. Most of the Nicaraguans moved to the Miami area. About 17,000 others from El Salvador, Guatemala and elsewhere are also affected by the order. Most of those individuals have settled in the states of Florida, Alabama and Georgia.
The ruling in the case could potentially affect the fate of up to 500,000 others currently in the United States. The plaintiffs are arguing that they should not be permitted to be deported since they were misled by the American government. The contention is that the plaintiffs were allowed to start new lives in the US and then were sent letters many years later kicking them out.
The judge’s ruling is especially significant since it blocks the enforcement of a key provision in the new immigration law which allows the retroactive application of new immigration laws that took effect on April 1st. The new law would have prohibited the plaintiffs here from appealing their cases to a higher court.
The INS has not stated whether they will appeal the decision of the judge.
Also last week, President Arnoldo Aleman of Nicaragua met with Attorney General Janet Reno to discuss the deportations. The Nicaraguan president urged Reno to consider the fact that unemployment in Nicaragua is running at about 50% and that it would be extremely difficult for that nation to absorb 40,000 deportees from the US. Aleman voiced optimism at the end of his visit that the Clinton administration will take action to thwart the mass deportations.
Disclaimer: This newsletter is provided as a public service and not intended to establish an attorney client relationship. Any reliance on information contained herein is taken at your own risk. The information provided in this article has not been updated since its original posting and you should not rely on it until you consult counsel to determine if the content is still valid. We keep older articles online because it helps in the understanding of the development of immigration law.