INS Allows Some Aliens to Leave, Keep Status

Illegal aliens who appear to be eligible for legal residency under the new immigration law now can receive permission for emergency foreign travel without jeopardizing their amnesty rights, federal officials announced Wednesday.

“It is for those who need to make a brief departure from the United States for a legitimate emergency or humanitarian purpose,” said Harold Ezell, Western regional commissioner for the Immigration and Naturalization Service. “The legitimate reasons may include a family obligation involving an occurrence such as an illness or a death of a close relative, or another family need.”

Ezell said his announcement was based on new instructions from INS headquarters in Washington.

Officials in the agency’s Los Angeles district office, which covers seven counties, had said Monday that they were still awaiting clear guidelines and had not yet begun to grant such permission--called “advance parole”--to illegal aliens.

Denied Permission

That statement came after two illegal aliens living in Santa Ana, Reginaldo Garcia and his sister Maria de Rosario Gama Garcia, revealed that they had been denied permission to visit their ill 77-year-old father in Mexico.

Ezell, speaking at Wednesday’s press conference in his office on Terminal Island, said the Garcias will meet with INS officials in Santa Ana today. “From what I understand, it’s a clear case of an emergency need, and they’ll be on their way with advance parole,” he said.

Ezell said that other district offices, including San Diego, began granting advance parole several weeks ago, based on a different interpretation of instructions from Washington.

Advance parole is available to illegal aliens who can show prima facie eligibility for legal status and who have a legitimate need to travel outside the country, Ezell said. Merely wishing to be home for the holidays would not be sufficient, but a wedding in the family could be, he said. Some non-family matters may also be significant enough to justify advance parole, he added.

Prove Residency

To qualify for amnesty, and thus be eligible for advance parole, illegal aliens must be able to show that they have lived in the United States since before Jan. 1, 1982, or have spent at least 90 days doing agricultural work in this country in the 12-month period that ended May 1.

Information in applications for advance parole will not be used to apprehend or deport illegal aliens, Ezell said.

Ezell also announced that illegal aliens who can show eligibility for amnesty but were deported or otherwise expelled from the country by INS after the Nov. 6 enactment of the law will be readmitted to the United States.

The law states that illegal aliens who appear to qualify for amnesty “may not be deported,” but various immigrants’ rights groups have claimed that such deportations have occurred.

Illegal aliens who “unknowingly” departed the United States after Nov. 6 will also be readmitted, according to the new INS instructions. This, like some other aspects of the law and regulations implementing it, promptly caused confusion.

The meaning of this point was clarified when Paul Schmidt, INS acting general counsel, spoke with Ezell and several reporters by telephone. Schmidt said it referred to situations such as an illegal alien being asleep in a vehicle that exits the country without his or her knowledge. A federal lawsuit filed against the INS in Sacramento by immigrants’ rights groups cites such an incident.

Ezell earlier had said that this instruction meant that illegal aliens who departed the United States after Nov. 6 but could show evidence of eligibility for legal status would be readmitted. After hearing Schmidt contradict this, Ezell corrected himself and said that someone in that situation would not be readmitted.