INS Demystifies Amnesty Process by Taking Family of 4 on Dry Run

With television camera crews and newspaper reporters watching, the Emilio Torres family of Santa Ana on Monday became the first family in the country to take their amnesty applications to an Immigration and Naturalization Service office.

The walk-through, on the eve of the effective date of the amnesty provisions of the new federal immigration law, was staged by Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove), who said he hoped that news coverage of the event would alleviate fears about applying for amnesty.

INS Commissioner Harold Ezell said he agreed to the dry run so that “these people who are hesitant of coming in can see . . . no bogyman is going to jump out of the walls and get them” as the law goes into effect today.

Ezell said INS officials are “ready I think in a very aggressive way” for the onslaught of applications for temporary residency, which he expects to reach about 250 a day at the Santa Ana office.

The family chosen for the walk-through was Emilio and Petra Torres, both 44, and their two daughters, Guillermina, 10, and Guadalupe, 5. The parents, who were born in Mexico, moved to the United States about 10 years ago.

The Torreses have owned a home in Santa Ana for several years. Emilio Torres is a construction worker, and Petra Torres works as a food processor in a factory. Both of their children were born in the United States and thus are U.S. citizens.

Few, if any, of the illegal aliens who follow the Torres family through the doors of the INS’ Santa Ana office, or any of the other 14 offices set up in the INS district that encompasses Orange and Los Angeles counties, can expect to be greeted as the Torreses were Monday.

The attention from the news media was only part of it. Family members also were presented with gifts by Dornan--red, white and blue flowers for Petra Torres, an American flag that had flown over the nation’s Capitol for the family and granite paperweights with a congressional seal for the daughters, who stared shyly at the many cameras trained on them.

Amid the general confusion, which was exacerbated by the noisy last-minute installation of office furniture at the new INS facility on Ritchey Street, the Torres family was taken through the application process. When it is official, the process will include paying a $185 fee for each of the parents (had their children not been citizens, it would have been another $50 for each of them) and the issuance of laminated employment and residence cards. The Torreses will then be given an appointment with the INS at which the actual amnesty will be worked out.

The family’s lawyer, Frank J. Valdez of Santa Ana, has prepared paper work that includes proof of residency, such as mortgage payments, birth certificates for the children and employment records accumulated by the family while in the United States.

Valdez said that, like the Torres family, many of those who have come to him for help also have adequate paper work to back up their claims of residency in the United States before Jan. 1, 1982, as the law requires to be eligible for amnesty.

“The wives have everything,” Valdez said.

He said the Torreses initially were concerned about the idea of the walk-through “because anytime you mention Immigration, everybody gets a little tense.” He said they were assured that they would be safe if they appeared at the INS with their lawyer.

Dornan said he came up with the idea of the walk-through after talking to members of the Mexican-American Bar Assn. of Orange County “about how people are so afraid of the bureaucracy.” He said the Torreses were the first in the country to submit their applications.

Emilio and Petra Torres looked as if they were more excited and awed than frightened Monday. As for their daughters, the 5-year-old, Guadalupe said the best part was “mi regalito” (my little present), the paperweight from Dornan.

But her older sister, Guillermina, had more serious things on her mind. She said she had feared that her parents would be sent back to Mexico, “but now I’m happy they’re staying here.”