INS Issues New Rules on Immigration : Tentative Regulations Say All Job Seekers Must Prove Residency

The Administration on Tuesday released tentative immigration rules requiring for the first time that all job applicants in the United States--both citizens and immigrants--prove their legal residency before being hired.

All new job applicants would have to present to an employer a passport, naturalization certificate or combination of other documents such as a driver’s license or Social Security card within 24 hours of getting a job, officials said.

The rules, part of a package formally unveiled at a news conference, are expected to become final in mid-April after a public comment period. Designed to prevent American firms from hiring illegal immigrants, they represent the first major step in implementing the landmark immigration measure signed into law by President Reagan in November.

Avoid Undue Burden

Officials asserted that the regulations were shaped to avoid placing any undue burden or scrutiny on foreign-born applicants.

“This affects not just aliens, but U.S. citizens” as well, said Mark W. Everson, executive associate commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

In addition, INS officials said they are considering a charge of $150 to $250 for processing each application for legal residency, an amount that Latino groups immediately attacked as too high.

INS officials also made a long-awaited clarification of the definition of brief absences from the United States allowed to illegal immigrants who are seeking legal status.

Specific rules addressing other aspects of the immigration reform law, including the fee for applicants, will be released within the next few months, Everson said.

Years of Efforts

The law, passed in October after years of unsuccessful efforts, offers legal status to illegal immigrants who have lived continuously in the United States, except for brief absences, since Jan. 1, 1982, or earlier. Also eligible are farm workers who worked at least 90 days during the year ending last May.

The agency estimates that 100,000 agricultural workers and 3.9 million other illegal immigrants will apply for legalization.

The law also provides for fines ranging from $250 to $10,000 and possible jail terms for employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants.

Everson said the INS took the “very unusual step” of releasing the proposed regulations before they were published in the Federal Register to show that the agency is engaging in a “very open procedure” during implementation of the immigration law.

After reviewing public comments, the INS will issue the final rules.

Everson said that, when an immigrant applies for legal status, he will be granted a six-month written authorization to seek employment while his application is pending, if he appears to qualify for legal residency.

Even children will have to document residency to get legal status, he said, so a husband might qualify, but a wife or children, if they arrived in the country later, might not. Children born in the United States are citizens even if their parents are not.

Besides the requirement of residency since Jan. 1, 1982, the new law says immigrants seeking legal status must not have received welfare and must not have criminal records.

Defending the proposal requiring proof of legal residency for every job seeker, Everson said the rules are “a long way from a national identification card.” Congress had considered a requirement for such a card, then rejected it amid outcries from civil libertarians.

To accept a job, an applicant would have to produce a birth certificate, a passport, a certificate of citizenship or legal residency papers. If an applicant could not show those documents, he could offer a combination of other papers, such as a Social Security card, driver’s license, state identification card or military discharge records.

Several immigrants’ rights activists said the proposal seemed fair because it put every job applicant on equal footing and discouraged discrimination.

However, Wade Henderson, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the screening program likely “would break down because employers would find it increasingly inconvenient,” thus leaving to be checked “only those applicants who they suspect to be foreign.”

Many of the proposed regulations follow precisely the law as written in Congress. Others fill in gaps or clarify vague parts of the legislation.

For example, the law allows applicants for legal residency to leave the country during “brief, casual and innocent absences,” but it does not specify any amount of time.

The proposed regulations say such absences should not exceed 30 days at a time “unless a further period of authorized departure has been granted at the discretion of the (INS) district director.”

Also, the regulations propose to allow a total of 150 days in brief absences between the legalization cutoff date of Jan. 1, 1982, and the date an illegal immigrant applies for legal residency. The INS will begin taking applications in May.

The proposals on absences were attacked by various interest groups as both too little and too much.

Linda Wong, the Los Angeles-based director of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund’s immigrant civil rights program, called the 30-day provision “really outrageous,” asserting that in some instances, such as unexpected family deaths, “you can’t wrap up matters in 30 days.”

Barnaby Zall, general counsel for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, called that provision “kind of strange” and too lax, saying that Congress did not intend to allow anyone to “leave the country 150 times for one day each time.”

INS has declared its intention to pay for the legalization program through fees to applicants, but some activists have disagreed with that approach.

At the news conference, Everson said INS estimates that the legalization program will cost $140 million for the current fiscal year and another $168.5 million in 1988.

He said that the agency does not have the funding to handle the program without substantial fees and that applicants should be willing to pay one for the privilege of legal status.

Many immigration experts had speculated that INS would charge $100 per applicant to process the forms, but Everson said $150 to $250 is “the range that we have narrowed it down to.”

Charles Kamasaki, Washington-based director of policy analysis for National Council of La Raza, a Latino rights group, called that amount “unreasonable” and said the proposed regulations should provide a lower cost for multiple applications from a single household.

Joseph Trevino, executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens, agreed, charging that INS was “shooting itself in the foot” by promulgating unduly restrictive regulations.