Ecumenical Immigration Services of New Orleans 1992

Ecumenical Immigration Services provided legal representation for Central American and Caribbean refugees.

The 1980 Refugee Act defines a refugee as "any person who is unwilling or unable to return to his or her country because of a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group." This certainly describes the innumerable Haitian, Guatemalan, and Salvadoran refugees who have found their home here in Louisiana jails and prisons as they await deportation to an uncertain and a sometimes fatal future.

The stories told to EIS by asylum applicants from El Salvador exceed the worst brutalities of Nazi-occupied Europe in butchery if not in numbers. 100,000 Salvadorans have been murdered by the U.S.-backed military since 1980. More than a million have become homeless refugees. yet there is virtually no chance of asylum, especially without legal counsel, translators, and other support systems.

– From the The Louisiana New South Coalition 1992 calendar.

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