I strongly support this bipartisan bill, which extends the deadline for Nicaraguans, Cubans, and Haitians to apply for adjustment of status under the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act (“NACARA”) and the Haitian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act (“HRIFA”). I would like to thank Senator Kennedy for his hard work on this bill in this committee, and the Chairman for his flexibility in scheduling a markup of this time-sensitive legislation.

This bill is necessary because the Immigration and Naturalization Service did not publish final regulations under these two laws (which were passed in the last Congress) until March 24, 2000 -- one week before applications for adjustment of status were due. Considering this delay, fundamental fairness demands that we extend this deadline so that the Nicaraguans, Cubans, and Haitians we have sought to protect will not be deprived of their rights under the statute. The Administration has agreed not to remove the affected people from the United States so that this legislation can be considered, but we cannot expect the Administration to wait indefinitely for us to act.

I am encouraged to see this committee taking action on a humanitarian immigration bill such as this one. I continue to believe that it is important that we be responsive not just to the immigration needs of business, as we were in recently reporting the H1-B bill, but also to the immigration-related concerns of ordinary citizens and the religious and human rights communities. Numerous members of this committee have introduced immigration bills that respond to those concerns, and I hope that today’s consideration of this bill is a sign of future activity in this area by this committee. In particular, I would like to see the committee consider two bills that I have introduced, the Refugee Protection Act – a bipartisan bill with eight cosponsors – and the Fairness to Immigrant Veterans Act, which has the support of the American Legion and many other veterans groups.