Talk With INS Attorney : Growers Prepare for Immigration Rules

Avocado growers, still reeling from the losses that freezing temperatures dealt to their ripening crops, gathered in Fallbrook on Wednesday to make peace with another enemy--the federal government.

Immigration and Naturalization Service attorney Martin Soblick told the North County growers that his agency expects 100,000 illegal aliens to apply for legal citizenship status in San Diego County under the new immigration law, which makes employers accountable for hiring illegal alien workers. He said three INS service centers will be established in San Diego and Imperial counties. One will be near Escondido, one in the Imperial Valley and one elsewhere in San Diego County. Soblick said 500 applicants will be processed each day after the “legalization process” begins May 5.

Agricultural employers have 12 to 18 months after the program begins to validate their workers’ residency claims or risk fines as high as $10,000 per violation of hiring illegal aliens. However, growers learned Wednesday that if workers present apparently valid documents supporting their legal U.S. residency, employers are legally “off the hook.”

But the new Immigration Reform Act of 1986 is going to change the relationship that employers have with alien workers, warned Russell Williams, president of Agricultural Producers Assn. His organization wants to form a group of agricultural employers to establish centers to aid alien workers in establishing residency.

Because rules governing agricultural workers’ attempts to obtain permanent U.S. residency are more lenient than those for non-farm workers, Williams predicted that large numbers of aliens will attempt to gain legal status as farmhands, then move into higher-paying industrial jobs in cities.

Williams suggested that growers begin to improve their relations with their workers, explaining that: “They are not going to just show up in your driveway every morning. You are going to have to do things to attract and keep workers. Only you know what you can afford to do to keep a stable work force.”

Williams, who helped shape the new immigration law as a lobbyist in Washington, said that similar statutes “have been tried in almost every developed country in the world” with varying success. He predicted that the new law would be met by an avalanche of counterfeit documents.

He advised the avocado growers to obtain duplicating machines and to make copies of the documents presented to them by workers or risk later reprisals by INS enforcement officers.

Regulations for administering the new immigration law are expected to be made public by early next month, Soblick said.

One safeguard that growers had welcomed in the new law--a requirement that Border Patrol agents must have search warrants in order to conduct alien roundups on private property--may not apply to many San Diego farmers and ranchers, Williams warned. The search warrant requirement is not applicable within 25 miles of a U.S. border and, Williams pointed out, not only is Mexico a boundary, but so is the Pacific Ocean.

Every phase of American life will be affected by the new laws, Williams said. Casual laborers, including once-a-week maids, must prove their legal residency, as must job applicants of every national origin.

He advised growers to band together and to help their farmworkers reach the goal of temporary residency and ultimate U.S. citizenship if possible or risk stiff government fines or serious labor shortages in the future.