United States Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, U.S. Committee for Refugees World Refugee Survey 1997 - El Salvador, 1 January 1997, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6a8a58.html [accessed 8 June 2023]
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A UN-brokered agreement in 1992 ended years of internal conflict in El Salvador and ushered in a new era of democracy, which continued to take hold during 1996, although politically motivated crime and terrorism continued. In an August report to the Security Council, UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali warned that the police were increasingly not accountable to the public and were again becoming instruments of authoritarianism. Many of the Salvadoran refugees who fled in the 1980s repatriated beginning in 1992, particularly from Mexico and Central American countries. However, many Salvadorans who fled to the United States remained there. The U.S. government granted Salvadorans Temporary Protected Status (TPS) from 1990 through June 1992, when it opted not to extend TPS but instead grant them Deferred Enforced Departure. Many Salvadorans continued to pursue their asylum claims, however. At the end of U.S. fiscal year 1996, there were 190,128 asylum applications from Salvadorans (cases, not individuals) pending before the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.
