By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writer

Spurred by an aggressive campaign by their government, Salvadoran immigrants in Washington and other U.S. cities are applying in unexpectedly large numbers for a
new benefit that allows them to live and work temporarily in the United States.

U.S. authorities had initially predicted that as many as 150,000 Salvadorans would take advantage of the program, announced in March by President Bush as part of
an effort to help El Salvador recover from two devastating earthquakes. But the Immigration and Naturalization Service says that more than 166,000 have signed up
-- and immigrants still have another 15 months to apply.

Authorities say the final turnout could be a milestone, surpassing the 190,000 Salvadorans who got a toehold in this country through a similar work-permit program
established in 1991 as El Salvador's civil war was drawing to a close.

Social service agencies in the Washington area have been swamped in recent weeks by applicants seeking help with their paperwork. "People have arrived in
massive numbers, and they continue coming. We had to hire two additional people to help us," said Gustavo Torres, director of Casa de Maryland, which has offices
in Silver Spring, Takoma Park and Germantown.

Under the program, known as Temporary Protected Status, Salvadorans who have been in the United States since Feb. 13, the date of the second earthquake, can
apply for work permits lasting until September 2002.

The Salvadoran government estimates that a quarter-million immigrants may eventually apply, about 15 percent of them from the Washington area, which has the
nation's second-biggest Salvadoran community.

The flood of applicants reflects the large number of Salvadorans who have poured into the United States, many undocumented, in the decade since the benefit was
extended to Salvadoran immigrants who fled during the 1980-92 civil war. Census figures released yesterday show 11,741 people of Salvadoran ancestry in the
District, an increase of about 10 percent in a decade. Figures for the rest of the Washington area are not yet available.

The high turnout for the work-permit program also reflects how the growing population of immigrants is prompting a new form of cross-border politics.

Embassy officials estimated that the Salvadoran immigrants would send nearly $2 billion back to their country this year, the equivalent of 13 percent of El Salvador's
domestic output. "The government has realized that getting [some kind of] legalization for undocumented people helps the Salvadoran economy," Torres said.

To urge its expatriate citizens to take advantage of the new work-permit program, the Salvadoran government has launched a media blitz in the United States. It set
up a toll-free hot line, met with community groups and distributed 300,000 Spanish-language guides -- complete with comic-book illustrations for those with little
education -- to explain the U.S. program. Back home, the government has urged Salvadorans to spread the word to relatives in the United States.

Several immigrants who were applying this week through Carecen, a social service agency in Columbia Heights, agreed that the work program would make a big
difference in the lives of their families, both here and in El Salvador.

David Martinez, 35, a husky Salvadoran with long hair cascading over a faded T-shirt, plays guitar at birthdays and baptisms in the Washington area. But since
sneaking over the U.S. border eight years ago, he hasn't been able to apply for a steadier job.

"This is the beginning of living well in this country," Martinez said. The work permit, he said, will enable him to get a better-paying construction job.

For Yanira Cortes, 23, now employed as a babysitter, the work document is a symbol of everything she longed for when she sneaked across the U.S. border a year
ago to come to Washington, leaving behind her 5- and 7-year-old daughters.

"We hope to have something for ourselves, a house, and to give the kids a better education than we had," said the curly-haired Cortes, who only finished eighth grade
and hopes to eventually send for her children.

The temporary protection program, in fact, isn't aimed at addressing such long-term goals. But the U.S. government has often renewed such permits, which have also
been granted at various times to immigrants from other countries suffering war or natural disaster.

Many of the Salvadorans who applied for the special benefit in 1991 are now becoming permanent legal residents, after a decade in which they won extension after
extension of their work permits.

Such a pattern worries advocates of tighter immigration controls.

"There's nothing as permanent as a temporary refugee," says Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies. "Once people have been
allowed to remain in the country for a very long time, they put down roots, their children grow up, and it becomes increasingly difficult to send them back. So we
need to understand at the outset that a grant of temporary protection is almost certainly likely to turn into permanent immigration."

                                               © 2001