INS Prepares for the Flood : ‘This is not an enforcement effort. We’re not going to have the Border Patrol waiting outside to pick them up.’

Art Roy wanted his listeners to be especially clear about one point.

“This is not an enforcement effort,” Roy, a legalization officer with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, told representatives from community agencies who gathered Friday at the new INS office in Kearny Mesa. “If somebody doesn’t qualify, we’re not going to have the Border Patrol waiting outside to pick them up. . . . I want to reiterate that.”

On Friday, four days before the official beginning of the one-year application period for the legalization, or amnesty, program, INS officers gave one last briefing to workers from groups that are assisting illegal aliens.

“We want these agencies to be ready for Tuesday,” said Robert L. Coffman, chief legalization officer in San Diego, who came out of retirement to head the San Diego office. At 71, he has 47 years of experience with immigration, including three years as chief of the immigration section at the U.S. Embassy in the Philippines.

“They (the agencies) have a critical part to play in all this,” said Coffman, who heads a staff of 26 in the office on Mission Village Drive.

Indeed, in drafting the amnesty portion of the landmark immigration law, Congress assigned a key role to qualified independent agencies, which are to serve as a kind of buffer between illegal-alien applicants and the INS. The law grants potential legal status to immigrants who can demonstrate that they have lived continuously in the United States since Jan. 1, 1982, or those who can show that they completed at least 90 days of farm work in the United States during the one-year period ending last May 1.

In San Diego County, the INS has granted its seal of approval to seven agencies that will assist illegal aliens in completing their amnesty applications. Applicants also are free to hire attorneys or other representatives, or to complete the application process themselves and submit their own forms.

Since mistrust of the INS runs deep in the undocumented community, it was no surprise Friday that Roy and other INS officials repeatedly urged agency officials to assure illegal aliens that amnesty is not a means to entrap them for deportation. Authorities have maintained that, except in cases of fraud, information submitted by applicants will not be used as a deportation tool.

“If people aren’t eligible” for amnesty, Roy said, “they can go right back out that door and go home.”

Despite such reassuring statements, it is evident that many immigrants are still wary of having any dealings with the INS--even if they may qualify for amnesty.

“A lot of people are just afraid to come,” said Frank Santamaria, a legalization instructor with the Center for Employment Training, a government-financed San Diego agency that will be providing immigration advice to amnesty applicants. “They’re afraid that the Border Patrol will be waiting for them.”

Throughout Friday’s session, it became apparent that, while many of the kinks have been ironed out in the amnesty program, there are still many questions.

A representative from at least one approved agency said that his group had yet to receive application forms from the INS. Others bemoaned the fact that they hadn’t received the forms sooner. (The documents only became available last week.)

There also is the question of whether eligible illegal aliens will be able to come up with the needed documentation--such as rent receipts and work records--demonstrating their continuous residence in the United States. Many undocumented people have historically used aliases and false addresses, and have destroyed their documentation so as not to leave a paper trail of their whereabouts. Now, ironically, such paper work may be crucial to their chances to obtain legal residency.

Moreover, community workers expressed considerable confusion about a section of the law that directs the INS to deny legalization if it is likely that the applicants will become “public charges.” Some immigration attorneys are even said to have advised amnesty applicants to stop receiving all forms of public assistance, including welfare payments for U.S.-born children.

But INS officials said such drastic action is unnecessary, and that interpretations of the law will be lenient in favor of applicants.

“We’re practically going to bend over to help make people qualify,” said Virginia Palomares, an INS legalization officer.