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.