INS Veteran, 71, Recalled for Amnesty Duty

The first day for amnesty under the new immigration law arrived Tuesday, and Robert Coffman, head of the government’s legalization office in Serra Mesa, looked out into a waiting area filled with more reporters than aliens.

Coffman, a spry 71-year-old Immigration and Naturalization Service retiree, used an old joke about distrust of the government to explain the relatively low turnout on the first day when thousands of aliens living illegally in San Diego could petition for legal status.

“I guess there are still many out there who believe what some people say is the most famous lie ever told: ‘Hello, I’m from the government. I’m here to help you,’ ” he said with a chuckle.

Aliens Wary

Actually, the first day of the amnesty program in San Diego progressed exactly as Coffman, who was an INS official for 40 years, had predicted Monday. Coffman had politely informed reporters not to expect too much activity on the first day. There are thousands of aliens who are still wary about the amnesty program, Coffman said, including many who believe that “this is merely a big sting operation.”

The issue of the INS’s credibility, which has never been high among aliens and the agency’s critics, is still a problem that must be resolved for the program to succeed, he said.

“The big thing is to establish our credibility and convince people that we’re sincere and we’re here to help. Once we get over the credibility issue, it’ll start moving,” Coffman said.

Local INS officials called Coffman out of retirement in February and asked him to head the new legalization office at 3247 Mission Village Drive, just up the hill from San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium. It is one of two INS amnesty offices in San Diego County. The other is in Escondido.

Coffman heads a staff of 25 that includes two other INS retirees who were also pressed into service and five civilian employees.

Retired for nine years, Coffman has spent most of that time working as a volunteer with refugees and aliens at the Catholic Community Services resettlement office. Coffman said that he has helped aliens fill out INS forms and offered them counsel on how to legalize their status.

‘Other Side of Table’

It was this experience as a volunteer that opened his eyes to “what it’s like to sit at the other side of the table,” he said.

“I can understand their hesitation to come in on the first day, or first week. I’d feel the same way myself if I was conditioned to seeing green (Border Patrol) vans picking up my friends and relatives and all of a sudden these same people were telling me, ‘Come on in.’ ”

After many years of arguing over immigration reform, Congress set Jan. 1, 1982, as the cutoff date for aliens who want to apply for amnesty. Anyone who entered the United States illegally after that date will have to remain in hiding or risk being deported.

Despite the much-ballyhooed immigration reform bill that was passed by Congress in November, Coffman said that he still sees some “anomalies in the law.”

“The biggest problem is that the law has no provision for ineligible members of the same family; such in cases where the father arrived before Jan. 1, 1982, but his family came after that date,” he said. “How can you tell the father that he can stay but his family will have to leave?”

INS officials said that the Serra Mesa legalization office can process as many as 250 applicants daily, but Coffman said it will probably be a month before his office starts processing anywhere near that number of aliens.

During the first 30 days of the amnesty program, Coffman expects his office to process mostly people who qualify for amnesty but were arrested by Border Patrol agents after the law was passed Nov. 6. This group of applicants has 30 days to petition for amnesty beginning on Tuesday.

Coffman said that he expects his interviewing officers to come across some people with false documents during the program. An alien with falsified receipts, utility bills and other documents is easy to spot, Coffman said.

“In my opinion, anybody who has a neat, large stack of documents is more suspect that one who comes in with a few papers,” he said.

But the legitimate applicants will greatly outweigh those who will try to circumvent the law by using phony documents, Coffman said.

“There are millions of people out there, in just about every state, who have waited many years for this day,” he said. “You can bet that if someone has a legitimate claim for residency, he won’t have to use deceit to get it.”