American Notes IMMIGRATION

Several hundred Central Americans arriving last week in the U.S. got a nasty welcome from the Immigration and Naturalization Service: they were promptly incarcerated. Under a new hard-line policy, refugees are detained while awaiting action on their request for political asylum, then deported if rejected by the INS. This time roughly 110 men and women were confined behind barbed wire at a detention center near Bayview, Texas, while about 200 mothers with children were held at a Red Cross shelter in nearby Brownsville.

Since the INS's get-tough edict took effect, the number of Central Americans seeking asylum at the INS processing center near Bayview has plunged from a high of 967 a day to 313 a week. Of these, only three arrivals, or about 1% of the total, were granted asylum. Noting the drop in applications, the INS put off plans to build a tent city to hold as many as 5,000 detainees and cautiously declared the new policy a success.

Others contended that many refugees have simply gone underground. Said E.J. Flynn, an attorney for Proyecto Libertad, a legal-aid organization: "What will happen now is they will take their chances going north alone, without documents, or pay people to help them."