Some 43,000 Nicaraguans in U.S. seek legal residency

February 25, 2000
Web posted at: 4:46 a.m. EST (0946 GMT)

MANAGUA, Nicaragua (Reuters) -- Nearly 43,000 undocumented Nicaraguans living in the United States have applied for legal residency under an amnesty law designed to help those who fled left-wing Sandinista rule in the 1980s, a diplomat said Thursday.

The 1997 law allows Nicaraguans who have lived in the United States since before December 1, 1995 to legalize their stays by March 31, 2000 or face deportation.

"Nicaraguans are realizing that the train is waiting, that it's boarding passengers and that it's about to leave," Francisco Aguirre Sacasa, Nicaragua's ambassador to the United States, said at a news conference.

The law is weighted toward helping Nicaraguans who fled the 1979-1990 Sandinista government of former President Daniel Ortega.

Immigrants from other Central American nations such as El Salvador and Guatemala who want to apply for legal residency in the United States under the amnesty law face tougher requirements, which has prompted criticism of unfair treatment.

Nicaraguans living in the United States send home an estimated $200 million annually, about 10 percent of the gross domestic product of this impoverished, debt-ridden Central American nation.

Aguirre Sacasa said the Nicaraguan Embassy in the United States had launched a promotional campaign aimed at assisting Nicaraguan immigrants in benefiting from the law.

Copyright 2000 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

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