Huge Backlog Plaguing INS Amnesty Effort

Each morning like clockwork, a Federal Express truck pulls up to the fortress-like Federal Building in Laguna Niguel and deposits another shipment of amnesty applications from immigrants throughout the West.

Inside the cavernous Immigration and Naturalization Service regional processing center, dozens of clerks sort the files, match them with computer entries and place them in the 5.5 miles of shelves that line a large portion of the facility.

And there most of them remain--silent testimony to the huge backlog that continues to plague the operation.

Of the more than 600,000 applications filed in the INS Western Region so far, only about half have even reached the center, one of four in the country. Of these, only about 80,000 have been processed to completion.

40% Staff Shortage

Dozens of empty work stations throughout the processing facility attest to a 40% staff shortage.

Each day, only a trickle of the files, which began arriving shortly after the one-year amnesty program began last May, reach the desks of the center’s adjudicators, the men and women who make the fateful final decisions of who may remain in the United States and who may not.

There the files come to life again.

One file traces a young man’s life through a fraudulent marriage and the immigration court system. Color snapshots of a smiling bride and groom attest to a new marriage and a new life; letters from employers and friends to his good character, a house note and income tax records to the fruits of his hard work.

Another case reveals the cold letter of the law. A young man will be denied legal residence because he crossed the border into the United States with a tourist visa that expired on Jan. 1, 1982--one day too late to be eligible for amnesty. Under the law, only immigrants who have lived illegally in the United States since before Jan. 1, 1982 may qualify.

Such cases daily cross the desks of adjudicators such as 21-year-old Gabriela Becerra, a former Border Patrol secretary from El Centro, whose job is to determine whether the people reflected in paper files are worthy of ultimately becoming U.S. citizens.

Like most of her colleagues, Becerra regularly works 10- and 12-hour days, six days a week, in an attempt to deal with the backlog. Her assignment is to judge applicants’ requests for waivers, required by those with strikes against them, such as having been deported or having received public assistance.

“Paper can tell so much about a person,” Becerra said. “You can tell whether a person’s a good guy or not. Some are very active in their communities, involved in schools and the PTA. Those you don’t want to deny.”

The young woman must weigh an applicant’s previous INS record--which may include deportations, visa violations or smuggling charges--as well as physical disabilities or acceptance of public assistance, against such mitigating issues as the public interest and humanitarian concerns.

‘He Has Rehabilitated’

In the case of two applicants seeking waivers for having committed marriage fraud, one appeared to satisfy Becerra’s standards because “he has rehabilitated and is now a good citizen. . . . He has family ties here, a good-paying job, money in the bank and is in the process of buying a home.”

But the other, Becerra said, “works at a car wash, so he has no public interest” justification, nor has he family ties or other mitigating circumstances.

Most of the center’s 39 adjudicators come with government experience from other agencies or have transferred from jobs as INS inspectors and clerks. They receive about two weeks formal training and the rest on the job. Becerra, one of only two Spanish-speaking adjudicators, is also among the youngest.

Although her former Border Patrol friends tease her that they “catch” illegal immigrants and she “approves them,” Becerra said, she “does everything within (her) power” to approve, rather than deny, applications.

99% Approval Rate

So far she has denied only one, which is reflective of the processing center’s overall 99% approval rate. The rate is slightly higher than the approval rate at the 38 legalization offices across the region, where immigrants initially file applications. Examiners at these offices interview applicants and make initial recommendations.

Processing center Director Joseph Thomas said he believes that denials may increase as more marginal cases begin to turn up.

“We’ve been processing applications from the meticulous ones who’ve kept all their records in order and filed early,” Thomas said. “Those still scratching to find old receipts and records to sustain their amnesty claims are probably still only thinking about filing.”

Because the process is taking longer than anticipated, many of the earliest six-month work permits issued when immigrants file for amnesty have expired. Without them, immigrants cannot legally keep their jobs. Under the law’s sanctions provisions, employers face fines and penalties for hiring illegal workers. In an effort to address the issue, INS officials recently announced that applicants with expired cards may have them renewed at INS legalization offices.

Bogged Down

The program has bogged down so much, that even now--eight months into the one-year program--adjudicators are still concentrating on applications filed in June, the second month of the program.

The nation’s other three regional processing centers seem to be experiencing similar backlogs, according to Thomas’ assistant, Peter Gordon. Recent figures show that about 189,000 out of roughly 1 million applications filed nationwide had been processed to completion, he said. Thomas attributes the problems in the Western region to “growing pains” in the first-time-ever operation.

The INS personnel office has yet to fill the vast majority of administrative posts, as well as 20 more adjudicator slots budgeted for the program, Thomas said.

But Thomas blames most of the trouble on a high volume of applications that have turned up previous records in cross-checks with the INS and the FBI. More than half the applicants--twice the anticipated rate--have thus required more extensive records checks, he said.

Numerous Delays

“We didn’t anticipate this much work,” nor the delays in cross-checking records, he said.

After applications are filed at legalization offices, they are sent to London, Ky., where a private data processing firm has been contracted to file all information into a computer bank. The data is then transferred to the Justice Department central data repository in Dallas. Then it is sent to the FBI and to INS central computers for cross-checking. Finally, the original applications, as well as any additional INS or FBI material pertinent to the case, are sent to Laguna Niguel.

A 19-year veteran of federal service who has learned to accept bureaucratic red tape as “a fact of life,” Thomas nonetheless said he wonders at times whether the personnel and Justice Department agencies that the center is dependent upon understand the urgency of the program’s deadlines.

“I don’t think they realize we have a program with a 12-month window,” he said.

Changes Caused Problems

Changes in INS rules after the program started, such as the determination that an immigrant’s required “continuous illegal” status in the country is not broken by re-entering the country with a legal tourist visa, also have caused some problems.

“Operationally it puts us on a roller-coaster,” Thomas said.

But for the most part, the late changes that have liberalized some eligibility requirements have been welcomed by Thomas and his staff. They welcomed a change announced by INS Commissioner Alan Nelson in October allowing the ineligible children of eligible parents to remain in the United States. And some have even argued for extending the benefit to the spouses of eligible immigrants, he said.

“There’s a lot of discretion and gray areas,” Thomas said. And, generally, applicants are given the benefit of the doubt when questions arise in applications recommended for approval. But if the recommendation is for denial, applicants are given a “second chance” to provide additional information to help strengthen their case, he said.

Thomas’ motto, and one often quoted by adjudicators, is: “If we’re going to err, we will err in favor of the applicant.”

Remains Optimistic

Despite the large backlog, Thomas said he remains optimistic.

“By the first of the year, I anticipate that the majority of those growing pains that have bogged us down will have been eliminated and that our output will be equal to our intake,” he said. “I don’t foresee ending with a big bulge” of applications.

The center now receives about 4,000 applications a day, but completes only about 1,000, Thomas said.

One measure that should help step up the process is that adjudicators will no longer be required to review all applications. Within a few weeks, Thomas said, he plans to begin requiring only spot-checks of applications recommended for approval, as was originally planned. The checks are intended to ensure the quality and uniformity of recommendations from legalization offices.

Rate Has Slowed

In recent months, the number of applications filed by immigrants in the region has slowed to about 2,000 per day. If the low rate continues, it is unlikely that the program will reach the INS’ original 2.1 million projection for the region, or even the revised 1.5 million.

Nonetheless, most INS officials have steadfastly rejected calls from immigrants’ advocates for an extension of the program’s deadline to allow more immigrants to apply.

But Thomas said that if the numbers begin to climb again as the May 5 deadline approaches, indicating that there is still a large applicant pool, “Congress would be foolish” not to consider extending the program.