Emergency Travel by Aliens Not Yet Approved by INS

Reginaldo Garcia and his sister, Maria de Rosario Gama Garcia, are illegal aliens living in Santa Ana who want to go to Mexico to visit their ill 75-year-old father, but they don’t want to forfeit their chance to win legal residency under the new immigration law.

So they went to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service Office in Santa Ana recently to apply for “advance parole”--written permission that would allow them to make the trip legally.

In recent weeks, INS officials have repeatedly stated that the agency would grant approval for emergency trips outside the country by illegal aliens who can show a prima facie case of qualification for amnesty under the new immigration law.

But the Garcias said Monday that an INS official in Santa Ana told them advance parole is not being granted. They made their case public at a press conference held in Los Angeles by a coalition of religious, labor and immigrants’ rights organizations that urged INS to implement the new law more generously.

Not Issuing Paroles

Monday afternoon, INS officials acknowledged that the Los Angeles district office--which covers seven counties including Los Angeles and Orange counties--has not yet begun to grant advance parole to illegal aliens who expect to win amnesty under the new law.

“We are not yet issuing advance paroles until we get our guidelines,” said Jane Arellano, assistant Los Angeles district director for examinations and citizenship, who said she instructed the Santa Ana officer to reject the Garcias’ application. Arellano said that the guidelines received from national INS headquarters apply only to aliens who already have cases on file with the INS.

Advance parole thus is not available now, at least in the Los Angeles district, for people like the Garcias who do not have pending cases but plan to apply for amnesty when the INS begins accepting applications May 5.

Thomas Gaines, acting Los Angeles deputy district director, initially stated Monday afternoon that illegal aliens who are “prima facie eligible for legalization” would be granted advance parole “on a case-by-case basis” if they can “prove that there is a good and legitimate and compelling reason for them to leave the country and be readmitted.”

Corrected Himself

But after hearing his subordinate Arellano explain her interpretation of instructions sent out from INS headquarters in Washington on Nov. 14, Gaines corrected himself and said: “Absent guidelines from our central office in Washington, at least temporarily our position is going to be that we will not grant advance parole. However, we’re hopeful that we will be receiving instructions immediately.”

Gaines said that if such instructions are received, INS would notify the Garcias so they can reapply for permission to visit their father in Mexico.

Their father, who lives in Guadalajara, is hospitalized with bronchitis, pulmonary problems and heart ailments, according to the Garcias, who were present in the audience at the press conference.

“My father is gravely sick,” Reginaldo Garcia said through a translator after the press conference. He said that the INS officer in Santa Ana had originally told them they would need a letter from his father’s doctor to qualify for advance parole, but that when they obtained the letter, the same person said “they had recently received new orders not to give any paroles or advance permits.”

Failure to Implement Policy

Speakers at the press conference cited the Garcias’ case as an example of failures by INS to actually implement its stated policies concerning some aspects of the new law. Coalition members also charged that the agency has deported some people even though they would qualify for amnesty. They announced that they are sending a letter to Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III and INS Commissioner Alan Nelson urging the suspension of all deportation proceedings against people who are eligible for legal residency, and also urging other changes in INS procedures.

The question of advance parole has been an issue in a Sacramento lawsuit filed against the INS by immigrants’ rights advocates who contend that brief unauthorized foreign trips should not disqualify aliens from amnesty. Attorneys representing INS in that case have said that illegal aliens may take emergency trips legally by first applying for advance parole.

Robert Moschorak, INS Western region associate commissioner for operations, said that although INS attorneys had cited the availability of advance parole in their court arguments, Arellano “has a good point” in saying that current guidelines do not authorize it.

“We sent a wire to Washington Dec. 5 seeking clarification of that provision,” Moschorak said. “We have not received a response to date. . . . It’s a tough question at this point that has to be resolved.”