Immigration

1. Over 10% of all immigrants to the Washington, D.C. area hail from El Salvador.

2. Between 1990 and 1998, over 25,000 Salvadorans immigrated into the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.

3. In 1996 alone, more than 3,300 Salvadorans immigrated to the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.

4. Last year, Salvadorans sent over $ 1.6 billion dollars back home to support family and friends.

5. In 1997, the year in which many IIRIRA’s changes went into effect, the INS deported 114,060 immigrants, representing a 65% increase over the previous year’s total of formal removals. Of those removed, 3,865 were from El Salvador and 3,495 were from Guatemala.

6. Many Salvadorans who have applied for NACARA face a wait as long as ten years before their applications are adjusted.

7. At the Arlington Asylum Office, 13,000 NACARA applications have been filed, but only approximately 2500 have been processed. Thus, only 18% of all applications at the Arlington Asylum Office have been processed.

8. At the national level, as of mid-2001, approximately 22% of all NACARA applications has been processed.

9. As many as 250,000 Salvadorans in Washington, D.C. and across the country have applied under the current TPS designation.

10. As many as 20% of those benefiting from the current TPS program live in the Washington, D.C. area.

11. The processing time for citizenship applications at the Baltimore INS Office is 243-365 days.

12. The processing time for citizenship applications at the Washington, D.C. INS Office is 354-426 days.