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 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,” and made presentations of miniature Statues of Liberty. They fielded questions--from families in festive moods, from dour-faced laborers and from the simply confused. And they conducted the first few formal interviews for what is anticipated to be up to 4 million amnesty applicants.

“All of our critics and chicken littles who were saying the sky is falling on amnesty are totally wrong,” declared INS Regional Commissioner Harold Ezell at the East Los Angeles center.

Still, both the INS and its critics concede that it will take longer than the first day to judge the success of the sweeping legalization program. The door for applications will stay open for one year.

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, soon ran out of amnesty application forms and had to wait an hour to be resupplied.

The scene varied widely across Southern California, with the biggest crowds in central Los Angeles. While some of the busier centers served about 2,000 applicants in the course of the day, at some centers in suburban Los Angeles and Orange and San Diego counties, INS employees sometimes outnumbered applicants.

Turnout across the rest of the country appeared to be lighter than in Los Angeles, with small crowds trickling into the INS’ 107 special legalization offices. 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 Mexicans, it was a Cinco de Mayo (Fifth of May) marked with added joy but tinged with anxiety. Potential applicants enjoyed both the commemoration of Mexico’s victory over French invaders and the expectation of a “once in a lifetime” opportunity to become legal U.S. residents. But for many, the holiday was a time of apprehension and continued confusion over who would qualify for amnesty.

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.”

But Eulogio Najar, 41, who went through the interview process at the Huntington Park center, added that “the only sad thing is that not everybody will succeed. . . . I know people who may not qualify.”

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 legal status will be open for only a one-year period.

Viewpoint of Critic

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 Tuesday, Ezell said.

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.

“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.

The day also had its share of inevitable snafus. At the Santa Ana office, a workman installing linoleum started a small fire when his torch got too close to some glue and damaged two bathroom walls.

At Holy Cross Catholic Church in Glendale, one of the pre-screening centers set up by the Catholic archdiocese to assist potential applicants, even the pastor’s blessing of the newly opened center was not enough. Shortly after his prayer, the center’s computers went dead. “Maybe the computers didn’t want to get blessed,” one worker joked.

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.”

In Pacoima, the San Juan Macias Orientation Immigrant Center closed shop Sunday because the small store-front office was unable to handle the nearly 300 people that had been coming in almost daily for help in filling out forms.

“We’ve been having two things: a people jam and a traffic jam,” said center director Mike Garcia.

Juan Jose Gutierrez, executive director of One Stop Immigration and Educational Center in East Los Angeles, said that one of the biggest problems is a requirement that applicants provide the names and cities of residence of every brother, sister, son, daughter, spouse or former spouse. The INS has pledged that this information will not be used to deport anyone, but some illegal aliens are still nervous.

Gutierrez said that some potential applicants say: “I’m hesitant to give my own name and come out from the shadows, now you’re asking me to give this information on my family. Can you guarantee this won’t become a big mess?”

“Of course we have to say yes,” he said. “We have to stick our necks out. . . . We have no choice; we have to believe the INS.”

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 disqualified 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.

Contending that the issuance of amnesty forms only in English “flies in the face of the intent of Congress to implement the law as liberally as possible,” Hernandez of MALDEF urged other agencies to provide needed information in Spanish if INS refuses to do so. She also called on INS to open processing centers more accessible by bus in downtown Los Angeles and that INS centers stay open evenings to better accommodate working people.

Although Ezell conceded that he was “pleasantly surprised” by the general smoothness of Tuesday’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.

Those who streamed into the centers Tuesday went primarily to pick up 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 gotten word out to enough people about 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, Ray Perez, Patrick McDonnell, Patt Morrison, George Ramos, Bob Schwartz, Lois Timnick, Bob Williams and Marcos Breton contributed to this article.

Photos, other stories on Page 23.