Anticipate Amnesty Problems, INS Urged

The United States, like several other countries before it, faces formidable problems in implementing its new amnesty policy for illegal aliens, including inadequate estimates of their numbers, deep-seated resentment of them and a perception by illegals that immigration officials are the enemy, a panel of experts said Thursday.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service should begin an “attitude adjustment” program for its employees, the experts said, to help overcome the negative perceptions that are likely to interfere with implementation of the amnesty program, in which immigrants who are here illegally will be able to apply for legal resident status.

The session--at which officials from France and Canada, as well as INS representatives, participated--detailed similarities and differences between the experiences of the United States and other countries on the issue of immigration. It was sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and followed an all-day meeting of U.S. and foreign experts.

Lessons to Be Learned

The other countries “went through the same problems as the United States. Therefore, some things can be learned,” said David S. North, director of the Washington-based Center for Labor and Migration Studies.

Compared with similar programs in 12 other nations, the panelists found, the U.S. amnesty plan generally is more restrictive, runs for a longer period and probably will grant legal status to far more people. Most other countries allowed people to become legal if they had lived there a year, but the United States is requiring five years of residency.

This restriction will create “a much more serious problem of ineligibility” because it is more difficult to prove a long residency than a short one, said Doris M. Meissner, a former INS official who is now a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment.

Meanwhile, INS officials said this week that the 100 centers across the nation that will handle applications for legal status will be staffed with “a core” of retired INS officials, who will be brought back into service because of their years of experience.

Sets Amnesty Dates

Under the landmark immigration act signed into law by President Reagan Nov. 6, illegal immigrants can apply for legal status if they can prove that they have lived here continuously since before Jan. 1, 1982.

Also eligible for legal status are farm workers who can show that they have been here for at least 90 days during the year that ended last May. Because farm workers can benefit more easily in this amnesty provision, some panelists said non-farm workers feel discriminated against.

Gearing up to take amnesty applications beginning May 5, the INS probably will “front-load” its staffing with large numbers of additional personnel early in the process, one INS official said.

If too few are hired, the INS will be criticized for poor preparation, the official complained, and if too many are hired, the agency will be denounced for wasting money. “We’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t,” he added.

Urges Caution by INS

Meissner agreed but advised the INS to “err on the high side” as a precautionary measure.

Duke Austin, an INS spokesman who attended the session Thursday, said later that U.S. legalization problems “will mirror those of other countries but will be multiplied because we are dealing with much higher numbers.”

The number of potentially eligible aliens has been estimated to be as high as 8 million, but many immigration experts believe that far fewer people will come forward--a belief supported by experiences in other countries.

Demetrios G. Papademetriou, executive director of Population Associates International, a research organization based in the Virginia suburbs, said that estimates of the illegal population were as high as 3.5 million in Venezuela in 1981, but that only 283,000 were given legal status under that nation’s program that year. “Be flexible,” Papademetriou advised the INS.

Cites ‘Divisive’ Elements

Warning that the amnesty issue is “divisive” in many countries because natives often believe that immigrants take away jobs and social benefits and because many do not speak the language, Papademetriou urged the INS “not to overreact to those things.” Instead, he said, top INS officials should conduct “attitude adjustment” sessions to ensure that all agency workers set a positive tone for applicants.

Speaking through an interpreter, Dominique Charvet, a French judge who is a former immigration official, said that, when France legalized 131,000 immigrants in 1981, the government helped ease the way by conducting extensive studies that convinced the public that “immigrants had contributed more than they had taken away” from the society.

Under the new law, applicants for legal resident status will use employer records as a way to prove that they have been in the country for five years. In other countries, several panelists said, employers were uncooperative because they wanted to continue exploiting the undocumented workers.