Amnesty Proves Insufficient : Gaps in Management and Law Impede Immigration Reform

When the Immigration Control Act was passed last fall, and again when it took effect in early May, there were predictions that millions of undocumented immigrants would rush to legalize their status. That hasn’t happened. After 2 1/2 months only 300,000 applications had been submitted to the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Why?

The legalization program has indeed brought hope to many undocumented immigrants who believe that they may qualify for legalization. (Generally speaking, that applies to persons who have lived in this country illegally since before Jan. 1, 1982, and undocumented farm workers who were employed for at least 90 days between May 1, 1985, and May 1, 1986.) However, the program is also causing anguish and insecurity among many others: those who do not qualify and are seeking ways to survive in the new reality, those who fear that they may be disqualified because of some technicality, and those who may qualify but fear that their families will be torn apart because some members may not qualify.

It is a wrenching human problem of widespread social impact. It affects an enormous amount of people--and not just Latinos. It affects every community with significant immigrant population. It affects workers and their employers and much of the industry in Southern California. And it affects children and youth, senior citizens and women. The worries are strongly felt by people who fear that they are on the margin of being qualified, or disqualified, among them: single mothers who at any time received any form of cash public assistance for their children; Salvadoran and Guatemalan refugees, who began to come here in sizable numbers just after the 1982 eligibility date; homosexuals, and disabled children and adults.

It is still possible to fashion humanitarian solutions to these problems. Congress and the executive branch can amend and implement the law to reduce its potential for causing grief and ensure that the benefits of legalization will reach the greatest number of applicants possible.

Congress can, for example, pass legislation, introduced by Rep. Edward R. Roybal (D-Los Angeles), that would automatically qualify the immediate family members of successful applicants for legalization.

At the same time, the immigration service can declare that, for the sake of family unity, immediate family members of successful applicants may remain in this country without fear of deportation. The current attitude of INS Commissioner Alan C. Nelson on this issue is mind-boggling. He has endorsed regional offices’ right to institute such a policy locally, but refuses to adopt it on a national level. The result is inconsistency from one region to another.

Congress also should extend the application period at least one year. The first months of operation of the program have revealed a number of significant difficulties at INS and the voluntary assistance agencies, including the largest of them, Catholic Charities, in the organization of their operations.

Especially troublesome is the possibility that INS and the agencies may not be able to process the applications as the volume increases. We are sure to see a heavy rush of applicants at the end of the one-year period. Haste will replace judgment, and many applications may literally “fall through the cracks.” The most likely victims are the poor--those who have been living in the underground economy, working for cash, going without filing income- tax returns to avoid detection, buying nothing on credit, and so on, and who are having the worst time meeting the stiff documentary proof requirements.

The INS should take steps to better its image among immigrants; their fear and distrust is a major factor in the slow rate of application returns. It should halt all raids for the duration of the application period; they are unnecessary, unproductive and the cause of great anguish and anger in the Latino community.

The INS should support a policy of not deporting Salvadorans and Guatemalans, consistent with the Reagan Administration’s new policy to defer the deportation of Nicaraguans. The recent resumption of activities of “death squads,” including reported assaults on Central Americans in the very territory of the United States, support the need for such a policy.

The INS should also establish generous, reasonable and consistent policy on un-resolved questions. For example, it should announce humanitarian policies that would not disqualify applicants solely on the basis of disability, or those who left the United States after 1982 and came back with short-term visas to avoid the dangers of illegal entry. And it certainly should establish uniform requirements for documentary proof of eligibility.

Most of these things could be done simply, as a matter of efficient management, to the advantage of both the INS and the immigrant community. At present, the expectation seems to be that the confusion will be cleared up through litigation undertaken by immigrant-rights organizations. Putting the onus on us is hardly the way to implement a new national policy.