The Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act or NACARA (Title II of Pub.
L. 105–100 (text) (PDF)) is a U.S. law passed in 1997 that provides various forms of immigration benefits and relief from deportation to certain Nicaraguans, Cubans, Salvadorans, Guatemalans, nationals of former Soviet bloc countries and their dependents who had applied for asylum.
The legislation was authored by Florida Congressman Lincoln Díaz-Balart[1] and was included as part of the D.C. Appropriations Act for FY 1998.
Even though the program was meant to have a tremendous reach to many immigrants, it was found that less than 70,000 asylees were legalized through the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act from its creation to 2009 according to the Center for Migration Studies.
[4] Immigrants from the Western Hemisphere were granted more leeway in entering the U.S. since no quotas were implemented for countries in the Americas unlike Europe and Asia.
The U.S. began to change their policies and did create a quota system for western countries seeing as many immigrants from Mexico and Cuba were entering in droves.
[4] The Nicaraguan Adjust and Central American Relief Act was created and targeted towards asylees from Cuba and also Nicaragua.
Salvadorians and Guatemalans were not originally meant to benefit from the program despite also having issues in their countries that resulted in them seeking asylum in the U.S., but they were added into being beneficiaries of NACARA.
The immigrants that were attempting to enter were applying for political asylee status, seeking the protection of the U.S.[6] The U.S. government was providing military and economic assistance to El Salvador and Guatemala due to the violent turmoil that plagued both countries due to guerilla warfare.
[5] TPS became part of the 1990 Immigration Act which allowed for people who fled their countries due to life threatening conditions to remain in the U.S. to work without fear of deportation under a temporary status.
DED essentially extended TPS and stopped any mass deportations for Central Americans until Congress could form a solution.