The Slow Pace of Amnesty

U.S. immigration officials must interpret the nation’s new immigration law as generously as possible. Especially those sections that let illegal immigrants legalize their status, the amnesty provisions. Otherwise the new law may not work as Congress intended.

Last week top officials of the Immigration and Naturalization Service met privately with Los Angeles’ Roman Catholic Archbishop Roger Mahony to discuss his concern that the new law could result in many immigrant families being divided, with some members being allowed to stay while others remain subject to deportation. This week immigrant-rights advocates filed suit in Los Angeles federal court demanding that the INS not disqualify illegal immigrants from amnesty because they left the country for a brief period and returned using legal visas. In both instances the problems arise from an overly rigid reading of the new law’s language.

So far INS officials--especially in the Los Angeles area, where many illegal immigrants who could benefit from the amnesty live--are being extremely cautious in granting amnesty, except in the instances in which persons clearly qualify. Their deliberate pace may account for the fact that, despite the initial estimates that as many as 3 million people might qualify for legalization, only 300,000 have applied since the amnesty program began two months ago.

INS officials blame the disappointing pace of legalization on the outside legalization centers that they authorized to help immigrants apply. Because they are staffed by inexperienced persons, these agencies have been slow in getting applications to the INS. But that is not the only reason. INS officials like Commissioner Alan Nelson have also been reluctant to interpret the new law as liberally as they can, and this has created some caution among immigrants and the agencies helping them through a maze of new regulations.

As often happens when Congress tries to write a law intended to regulate a complex social or economic phenomenon--and illegal immigration is both--the language is broad and general, but the agency charged with administering the law is given leeway in applying it to individual cases. That is especially the case with the INS, whose agents have always had a great deal of administrative authority in handling both legal and illegal immigrants. Nelson and other INS leaders should use that administrative authority now, especially to help families that could be split up. After all, when Congress passed the new law one of its aims was to bring as many illegal immigrants out of hiding as possible. By being slow or stingy in applying the new law to persons, or to families, falling just outside its margins, the INS only compounds the fear and confusion that many of them already feel.