Santa Ana : INS Urged to Halt Raids Until Law Takes Effect

The Immigration and Naturalization Service was urged Tuesday to halt its raids against undocumented workers until the new federal immigration law takes effect.

“If the raids continue, how will INS officers know whether the person they pick up was here pre-1982 or arrived later?” Amin David of Anaheim said after an immigrant rights activists’ press conference at the county Hall of Administration.

“Once a person is picked up and accepts voluntary departure, they’ve had it because it will show up on their record and they will never be able to legalize their status,” David said.

Under the immigration reform act passed by Congress and awaiting President Reagan’s signature, illegal aliens who have been in the United States since 1982 or earlier would be eligible to apply for amnesty.

David said a request would be made for a meeting with Harold Ezell, the INS’ western regional director, in order to discuss the situation.

“We want him to meet with us so he can explain what he interprets the law to mean,” David said. “We will also formally ask him to cease (the raids) until all things are in order and there has been a chance to spread the word as to what the law is really all about.”

Ezell was not availble for comment on the request to halt the worker sweeps.

Rusty Kennedy, director of the Orange County Human Relations Commission, said the group also wanted to alert those who may be eligible to apply for amnesty “to wait until the INS makes the procedures for doing it known before they put out money to notary publics or attorneys, which may or may not have an impact on their status.

“The last time the reform law was highly publicized we got a lot of complaints from people who paid a lot of money for documents and forms that were available for free,” Kennedy said.