Aliens Unsure of New Law’s Impact

The pickup truck slowed. A dozen or so men waiting along a Costa Mesa street looked up hopefully.

But the truck’s driver merely raised his middle finger and held it up to the window as he drove away.

In the eyes of some of the Mexican nationals standing there, the United States itself gave them a similar gesture of contempt when it passed a landmark Immigration Reform Bill last month.

Others--those who may benefit from the bill’s amnesty provisions--said the law offers them hope of at last becoming citizens of the country they already call home.

But most said they will wait until next May, when many provisions of the controversial legislation will be implemented, to weigh the long-term effect of the law on their lives.

The new law is complex. Joe Flanders, a public information officer with the Immigration and Naturalization Service, explained that undocumented workers who have been in the country continuously since Jan. 1, 1982, may be eligible for amnesty and eventual citizenship, and that agricultural workers who can prove that they’ve worked in this country for at least three months in the twelve-month period ending last May 1 are eligible for temporary resident status.

The law also makes it illegal for an employer to knowingly hire a worker who is not a U.S. citizen or properly documented as an immigrant worker. The crackdown on scofflaw employers doesn’t begin until May 1 of next year, said Flanders, when the INS will begin “playing hardball” by issuing preliminary warnings and imposing fines and prison sentences for subsequent offenses.

But most of the workers who arrive around 6:30 each morning at a couple of well-established Costa Mesa labor pickup locations--in the hope of painting, pounding nails, washing dishes or mowing lawns--were convinced a chill has already set in.

“Usually, we get work four days a week, now we can’t even get one day,” said one of the two dozen or so men scattered throughout a Costa Mesa park.

“People who hire us are afraid to come around now,” said another.

Clearly, the new law had been the topic of many conversations among these men, who too often now have little to do with their time but talk.

Two young brothers who came to the United States at different times wondered if amnesty, which applied to one but not the other, would force them to part. Another man worried that authorities might use a provision of the law requiring an understanding of English and American history as a technicality to renege on the spirit of the law.

‘Everyone in Suspense’

“There are a lot of organizations speaking out against the law,” said a middle-aged man in a California T-shirt. “But it’s already been passed and we don’t have the power to change it. . . . Right now, everyone is in suspense. No one knows what will happen between now and May.” The man, who came to the United States from Guadalajara “seven or eight” years ago, said he has his temporary resident papers, and will probably apply for amnesty.

Because the threat of deportation will have lost its sting, the law may well give newly documented workers the ability to stand up against the sort of exploitation that is now common, he said. But what about the undocumented men whose families in Mexico depend on the money they send home? And what will the effect of higher wages be on the U.S. economy, he wondered?

As he talked, a cluster of younger men and boys listened intently, while keeping an eye out for the cars that pulled up occasionally with job offers. They also watched for the Immigration and Naturalization Service-- la migra --which, according to rumor, was planning a sweep through the park.

A moratorium on deportations for most illegal aliens, excluding those caught at the border, was to remain in effect until May 1.

Not Observing Moratorium

However, Antonio Rodriguez, director of the Los Angeles Center for Law and Justice, said that the INS is “definitely not” observing the moratorium.

“If they (immigration authorities) say that it is ‘business as usual,’ they are not carrying out any moratorium. I was just in court (last week) and I witnessed trials where people were being deported, and these were people who had been here eight or nine years.”

Rodriguez said that a lawsuit was filed last week by California Rural Legal Assistance and the National Center for Immigrants Rights Inc. to halt the deportations.

However, the INS on Friday formally ordered its agents to halt deportations of illegal aliens if it appears that they are entitled to stay under the provisions of the Immigration Reform Bill.

But a moratorium would provide only temporary comfort for Jaime, a 17-year-old in a red Boy Scout beret who stood playing with a yo-yo, and Gavino, 17, who arrived together on a freight train in El Paso, Texas, five months ago, after two previously unsuccessful attempts to cross the border.

Like most of the people gathered in the park, they realize they have been in the United States too short a time to expect any benefit from the new law. Now they are waiting to see what happens in May, Gavino said with a shrug.

And then?

“Then I’ll marry a drunk gringa,” Gavino said, laughing.

On another Costa Mesa corner, a 43-year-old Mexican national said that if the new law really eliminates the opportunities for undocumented workers, his family in Cuernavaca, which he supports with the money he earns in the United States, “just won’t eat very well.”

Without work in this country, he would be forced to return to Mexico, he said. But that prospect is not inviting.

sh ‘Nobody’s Working’

“There hasn’t been any rain, and the ground is drying up. Over there, nobody has been working.”

Across town, Jose Morro (not his real name) and his extended family had discussed the new bill long before it passed.

With the exception of one Mexican family, Morro’s neighbors in a small cluster of Costa Mesa duplexes and apartment buildings are Salvadorans. To escape the violence and poverty of their homeland, they traveled to Mexico and slipped into the United States surreptitiously, said Morro, 40.

Evalinda Nieto, 43, is one of five adults and four children, all related, who share the two-bedroom apartment in which Morro lives.

“Everyone chips in (on the $650 monthly rent),” said Nieto, who works at a Costa Mesa laundry. “The pay we get is so low, we all have to contribute.”

Nieto came to the United States with her husband 10 years ago, crossing the border illegally after riding buses up through Mexico. They applied for political asylum when they arrived, but the INS rejected their claim.

Nieto’s husband, who has an accounting degree from a university in El Salvador, found work as a janitor at a Newport Beach restaurant. He has since moved up to being a cook there.

Two years ago, the owner of the restaurant took up their cause with the INS, Nieto said as she ironed her two daughters’ clothes in the living room of their shared home.

Visit Homeland

With a “green card” in hand, her husband would have a better chance of getting the sort of work he is qualified for, Nieto said. And they would be able to return to El Salvador to visit.

“With the earthquakes, we (were) very frightened for our families,” she said. “We (had) no way of knowing (what was) happening.”

Now Nieto is hopeful that the INS will grant her permanent resident status. She sees the amnesty provision of the new law as a sort of guarantee.

Jose Morro, too, wishes he could visit his homeland. Like Nieto, however, he considers the United States home now, and would like nothing more than to be a citizen.

“When I was 26, I applied to the American Embassy in El Salvador to join the American armed forces,” said Morro, who drove “trucks, tractors, cars--everything” for a living.

U.S. soldiers were dying in Vietnam at that time. But getting to “El Norte” meant so much to him that he didn’t worry about the danger, he said.

Still, the United States rejected his application. In 1979, after years of effort, Morro attained a visa to enter the United States legally. But problems came up in his life, and before he could leave El Salvador, the visa expired.

Morro applied again, but the U.S. Embassy wanted him to demonstrate that he owned “land or a car or anything, to show that I had something to come back to. . . . But I didn’t have any of those things,” he said.

Paid ‘Coyote’

So in 1982, Morro, with a brother, sister and cousin, worked their way up through Mexico and paid a “coyote” to escort them into this country.

Since then, Morro has worked at a variety of jobs. He wore a baseball cap emblazoned with a “Dial One Landscaping” logo. From his wallet he pulled the business cards of a Newport Beach mental health clinic where he has worked as a custodian, and a manufacturer of ultralight aircraft where he did assembly work.

Asked if becoming a U.S. citizen would change his life, Morro nodded, and flashed a grin gilded with gold braces and fillings. It would mean more work; more freedom, he said. It might even mean he could realize his dream of becoming a trucker, and roaming America’s highways in an 18-wheeler.

But there’s a problem, he added.

Rummaging in his pocket, Morro held up a California Identification Card, which he uses to prove how long he’s been in this country. The date on the card is July, 1982. The date for amnesty is Jan. 1, 1982.

“It would be a shame,” if he missed qualifying for U.S. citizenship by five months, he said, shaking his head. And none of the special provisions for farm workers apply to him. “With the situation in El Salvador--with the earthquake and the violence--I wish we could just live here and be left alone,” he added.

A few minutes later, a man appeared at the door and Morro stepped outside to speak with him.

He returned, grinning again. He had to leave, he said. He had a job for the day pouring concrete.