Grace Period by INS May Delay Employer Sanction Enforcement

The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service may relax some rules under the new immigration law in order to smooth the scheduled June 1 enforcement of employer sanctions, an agency official said Friday.

The INS is considering a regulation that for a certain period after June 1 would allow employers to hire illegal aliens who expect to qualify for amnesty if they declare their intent to apply for legalization before the end of that period, according to David Nachtsheim, director of immigration reform in the INS Office of Enforcement.

Another option under consideration is to delay all enforcement of employer sanctions, Nachtsheim said. It is also possible, he said, that the agency will decide not to introduce any modifications, and that all illegal aliens seeking employment after June 1 will be required to first apply for amnesty and receive work authorization.

“We’re not adopting a hard-and-fast position on it right now,” Nachtsheim said. Even after a tentative INS position is announced, probably next week, it will be subject to modification in response to public comment, he said.

Pressuring INS

Immigrants rights activists have been pressuring the agency to establish more generous rules for work authorization so that people otherwise eligible for amnesty will not be shut out of the job market.

Refusal by the INS to grant work authorization in these cases “is squeezing people out of the legalization program,” said Peter Schey, executive director of the National Center for Immigrants’ Rights Inc., which is challenging the INS in court. Inability to get work permits may jeopardize aliens’ eligibility by forcing them to be unemployed and exhausting their savings, leaving them unable to pay required fees, he explained.

It is unlawful for employers to knowingly hire illegal aliens after Nov. 6, 1986, but the law provides for an educational period, during which sanctions are not enforced, to run until June 1.

Under the law, temporary work authorization is to be granted to illegal aliens when they apply for amnesty. But the INS will not begin accepting applications until May 5, and enforcement of employer sanctions is scheduled to begin on June 1. Employers are not liable for sanctions for illegal alien workers on the job before Nov. 6, 1986.

Not Enough Time

Many immigrants’ rights activists have argued that the period of May 5 to June 1 is not enough time for tens of thousands of people needing work authorizations to submit amnesty applications. The activists have said that many people who are eligible for amnesty already are facing difficulty finding employment because they lack work authorization.

A coalition of immigrants’ rights, church and labor groups that has disputed several INS regulations in a Sacramento court case filed a motion Friday asking for a preliminary injunction that would compel the agency to issue work authorization to illegal aliens eligible for amnesty if they are willing to turn themselves in at INS offices.

The INS already is providing work authorizations to people apprehended after enactment of the law when they appear eligible for amnesty. But it has refused to provide them to people who turn themselves in in an effort to get work permits.

The motion filed Friday in the U.S. District Court in Sacramento also seeks to compel the INS to grant work authorizations to aliens eligible for amnesty if they have been in deportation proceedings since before the law’s enactment. It also seeks to compel the agency to admit agricultural workers into this country if they can show eligibility for legal status under the new law.

Unions Join Case

The AFL-CIO and the United Farm Workers of America joined the case Friday as new plaintiffs.

Nachtsheim explained that employers might be given “a grace period” before blanket enforcement of sanctions begins through an option “that the employee fills out the form (claiming eligibility for amnesty and declaring the intent to apply for it) and has 30 days to come back to the employer and show he’s gotten the (legalization) process started . . . and has gotten work authorization from the immigration service.”

“It could be possible to make that a 60-day period or a 15-day period, depending on what the public thinks is an appropriate period of time,” he said.

Another possibility, Nachtsheim said, is to “extend the educational period.”

The INS, he explained, could simply say that “the educational period is extended and we’re not going to start enforcement until Dec. 1, or Jan. 1.” It is possible, however, that “Congress might be dissatisfied” with such an approach, he added.

Offers Legal Status

The law offers legal status to people who have lived in the United States since before Jan. 1, 1982, or who performed at least 90 days of agricultural work in the 12 months ending May 1, 1986.

Jose Guadalupe Vargas, a Santa Ana resident who has been fighting deportation proceedings since 1984, is among those apparently eligible for amnesty who have been hurt by inability to get a work authorization.

Without a work authorization, Vargas said, he was not even allowed to fill out an application at most places during three months of looking for work after he lost his job as a truck mechanic last year.

“I never had trouble before finding a job,” he said. “Now, everywhere I go, they ask me for papers--proof that I have permission to work here.”

Renews Authorization

Last week, Vargas got a stamp that renewed his previous work authorization.

“The first time I went, they told me they weren’t giving that to nobody,” said Vargas, 31. “The next time they asked me for more proof (of continuous residence).”

When he went back the third time--with tax returns going back to 1975, records of mortgage payments and birth certificates of his three U.S.-born children--he received the stamp, which is valid until June, in about half an hour.