WASHINGTON, May 16 (UPI) -- Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Tuesday he wants to overturn a 1987 court order that inhibits the deportation of Salvadoran immigrants.
"We have one big step left in order to complete this job, and that is to get rid of a 20-year-old court order that hampering our ability to use expedited removal with respect to people from El Salvador. And we have legislation that members have introduced that would help us achieve that," said Chertoff at a White House press conference.
Chertoff is referring to a federal district court's decision in the 1987 case Orantes-Hernandez v. Gonzales. That decision granted an injunction on the deportation of any Salvadoran detained without warrants by the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
At the time, El Salvador was engaged in a bloody civil war and those who fled to the United States said they did so because they feared persecution in their home country.
During years of hearings the court determined that INS agents had regularly coerced Salvadoran refugees into waiving their rights to deportation hearings and instead to seek political asylum. Salvadorans were also denied access to legal counsel ofr the means to make their case for political asylum.
DHS argues that the political situation in El Salvador is improved now, and the fear of persecution should no longer be considered a legitimate reason not to deport Salvadorans under the expedited deportation powers granted to DHS - the successor organization to the INS.
