Thousands Respond to Offer of Amnesty : First Day of Plan for Illegal Immigrants Proceeds Smoothly Despite Some Hitches

In an orderly and continuous stream, thousands turned out at immigration offices across Southern California Tuesday on the opening day of the nation’s first amnesty program for illegal immigrants.

Immigration and Naturalization Service officials, who have come under heavy criticism for their implementation of the long-awaited program, made a show of friendliness. They wore lapel buttons that read, “We serve with courtesy and pride,” made presentations of miniature Statues of Liberty at area offices and ushered applicants through the legalization process. They fielded questions from applicants and even conducted the first few formal interviews for what is anticipated to be up to 4 million amnesty applicants. “This is exactly the kind of rhythm we wanted to establish,” said INS Regional Commissioner Harold Ezell during a late afternoon appearance at the Santa Ana center. “We were ready to go, and the sky wasn’t going to fall. We expect every day to get better.”

Some Problems Reported

Although the chaos predicted by some INS critics did not occur, there were scattered reports of hitches at several centers in the Los Angeles district’s seven-county area.

The INS center in El Monte, for instance, ran out of amnesty application forms shortly after opening its doors and had to wait an hour to be resupplied.

The scene varied widely across Southern California. While some of the busier centers served about 2,000 applicants in the course of the day, at centers in North Hollywood and Gardena the response was so low that INS employees sometimes outnumbered applicants.

Lines were short or non-existent throughout the day at Orange County’s three legalization offices, where INS employees handed out nearly 3,000 applications. They also interviewed and issued temporary work authorization cards to nine illegal aliens who managed to complete the lengthy applications a week after they were first made available by the INS.

“It was really kind of a festive atmosphere,” said Gene Pyeatt, head of the INS legalization office in Garden Grove. “They were an extremely pleasant group.”

The INS said all of its 107 special legalization offices around the country were in full operation as the application period opened. Across the country, the scene was similar, with the flow of applicants at most sites more a trickle than a flood. Some private groups that are helping the INS to process applications blamed the low turnout on aliens’ fears of arrest or of having their families broken up if some members fail to qualify for legal status.

For many Mexicans it was a bittersweet Cinco de Mayo (Fifth of May). The double celebration of Mexico’s victory over French invaders and of the “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity to become legal U.S. residents was tinged with anxiety and continued confusion over the program.

Just Like a Wedding

The excitement of the day reminded Rodolfo Godinez, 27, who with his wife Rosi was among the first to have his amnesty interview at the Huntington Park center, of the couple’s wedding day.

“I feel like I did when we got married--something you’ve expected for a long time, a once-in-a-lifetime experience, you’ve got butterflies,” said Godinez, a graphic artist who has lived in the United States since he was 14.

After getting their employment authorization cards, Rosi Godinez, 24, who works as a lab assistant for a dairy, said with a big smile, “Over there in Mexico they celebrate Cinco de Mayo. That’s what we’re celebrating too--our independence.”

At the Garden Grove office, Maria Martinez, whose two children are U.S. citizens, was among those who picked up legalization forms.

“We’ve been waiting for this for a long time,” Martinez said. “We are really excited about becoming legal citizens.”

Nonetheless, demonstrations to protest what many Mexican-Americans view as an overly restrictive law were held at the border and at the downtown Los Angeles Federal Building.

“It’s a sad Cinco de Mayo for the undocumented community,” said Father Gregory Boyle of Dolores Mission Catholic Church in East Los Angeles, as he was arrested along with 12 other protesters who chained themselves to a gate at the INS detention facility.

Door Open One Year

To be eligible for amnesty, aliens must prove that they have lived continuously in the United States since before Jan. 1, 1982. The door to amnesty or temporary legal resident status will be open for only a one-year period.

Antonia Hernandez, president of the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which has been a strong critic of the law and INS’ implementation of it, contended that the first day of amnesty was “not a mess because there were no people.

“It’s like they gave a party and nobody came,” she told a Los Angeles press conference.

The tally for the first day of the amnesty program was 30,000 to 40,000 applications distributed in the 15 government processing centers in the Los Angeles district, where as many as one out of three applications in the country are expected to be filed. About 200,000 applications had already been distributed before doors officially opened Tuesday.

The landmark law has generated significant opposition, some of it mounting in recent days. Immigrant rights groups have criticized the INS for not releasing final regulations until Friday and have said applications should have been prepared in Spanish as well as English.

Vote for a Delay

A Senate subcommittee on Friday approved an amendment calling for a four-month delay in the enforcement of the employer sanctions portion of the law, scheduled to begin June 1. Proponents of the amendment cited widespread confusion and lack of information about the law.

Still, both the INS and its critics concede that it will take longer than one day to judge the success of the sweeping program.

“If we’ve started out slowly, maybe it’s because there is some fear out there,” conceded William King, who is in charge of the law’s implementation in the INS Western Region. He added, however, that “with every day that goes by” the fear will ease as aliens “see that no one is arrested and that they are treated courteously and humanely.”

Other INS officials attributed the small turnout to other factors, including an inherent distrust of the INS; the work of independent agencies, which have done a lot of the initial screening and consequently deflected work from the INS, and the unavailability of many needed forms until only last week.

Los Angeles Roman Catholic Archbishop Roger M. Mahony, who mingled with a crowd of about 200 people who showed up at St. Vibiana’s Cathedral for the church’s pre-screening services, criticized the INS’s $15 reimbursement to community and church agencies providing such services as too low. Mahony noted that the INS is charging applicants $185 per person and up to $420 per family.

“I really don’t see the reason for that,” he said. “We’re doing all the work.”

Church Offers Assistance

Through Catholic Charities, the archdiocese has already pre-registered almost 300,000 potential amnesty applicants.

“We can’t process any more applications because we don’t have the people to help,” said the Rev. Richard Gillett of El Monte’s Immanuel Episcopal Church, which has informally helped about 200 applicants fill out amnesty forms, but refuses to take any more. “We have to get more churches involved.”

Merced Martin, executive director of Westside Legal Services, which plans to provide legal defense for applicants who are denied amnesty, estimated that 25% of all applicants will be denied amnesty and will be in need of such services.

Another indication of what may be in store as immigrants rush to file their applications came from the INS processing center in Hollywood, where director John Bowser said that out of about 20 completed applications filed with the center Tuesday, most would have to be sent back because they were incomplete. He noted that most of them had been completed without any assistance form attorneys, church or other voluntary agencies.

Although Ezell conceded that he was “pleasantly surprised” by the general smoothness of Monday’s operation, INS officials said they had not expected large crowds since applicants will be called for interviews only by appointment. Officials are encouraging applicants to mail in their completed application forms and to wait for a notice of their interview appointment in the mail.

Some Run Out of Forms

Those who streamed into the centers Tuesday, as others have done since the offices began opening last week, went primarily to pick up application forms. Even so, the lines of applicants at several processing centers, including those in El Monte and Hollywood, grew to several hundred at times when the offices temporarily ran out of application forms.

“I was prepared to see 200 to 300 people out there waiting,” said Guadalupe Ochoa, chief legalization officer at the center in El Monte, who expressed surprise at encountering only about 40 potential applicants when the doors opened at 8 a.m.

Some of the applicants were just as surprised.

Paul Perez, 24, accompanied by his wife, Lily, and two friends who came to lend “moral support,” arrived at the Santa Ana legalization office on South Ritchey Street at 5 a.m.--to beat the expected crowds.

But there were no crowds, and when the doors opened at 8 a.m., Perez, who has lived in Santa Ana for eight years, went in and came back out with an application form in hand in less than five minutes.

“A lot of people are still scared about this, and they’re staying away to see if anyone is picked up,” said Perez, an electronics assembly worker.

Special Help for Some

At some centers, officials actually walked a few applicants through the amnesty process; candidates were pre-selected because of the uncomplicated and well-documented nature of their cases, officials said. But even among them, some potential problems arose.

A nervous Jose and Candelaria Lopez were the first at the East Los Angeles office to be led to a counter where they turned over several large manila envelopes full of old receipts and other documents.

“After years of living with the fear of being deported,” Lopez, 27, who works as a mechanic in Alhambra, said that he was excited at the prospect of having “the opportunity to advance myself.”

During their interview, however, Candelaria Lopez disclosed that she had left the country briefly to visit an ailing parent in Mexico and that she returned into the country with a legal visitor’s visa, which later expired.

INS District Director Ernest Gustafson later noted that INS regulations are not clear on this point.

For the time being, however, the couple walked out of the office with computer-issued work authorization cards good through November of 1988.

Advice From Officials

INS officials discourage applicants from seeking information at INS processing centers, referring them instead to community organizations. On Tuesday, however, East Los Angeles center chief legalization officer Art Alvarez made an exception and was quickly surrounded by potential applicants at the entrance to the center. He answered a never-ending stream of questions about eligibility and the amnesty process.

Whenever he appeared stumped by a question, Alvarez advised people that “if you feel you might qualify, go ahead and apply.”

Some, like George Cisneros and his wife, Jenny, complained that the INS has not made it clear where to drop off completed forms. The couple said they spent Monday night outside the downtown INS office along with a couple of hundred other people waiting to turn in their forms.

“We didn’t know where to drop off the papers so we spent the night sleeping on the ground,” said Cisneros, a 48-year-old mechanic. “Then, this morning they sent us here.”

“It seems like nobody knows nothing about this whole thing,” added his wife.

Times staff writers Ashley Dunn, Gabe Fuentes, David Holley, Ray Perez, Patrick McDonnell, Patt Morrison, George Ramos, Bob Schwartz, Lois Timnick and Bob Williams contributed to this article.