Otay Mesa Center to Ease Processing of Farm Laborers

Immigration officials, responding to pressure from Western growers, plan to open a new amnesty processing center in southern San Diego County where foreign farm workers can apply for legal status.

The new center represents one of a number of steps taken by federal authorities to make it easier for agricultural laborers from Mexico to enter the United States.

Among other things, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service is apparently ready to open the new center at the Otay Mesa international crossing, just across from Tijuana, where agricultural laborers can apply for legal status. The center reportedly may be opened as soon as Tuesday.

The border facility is seen as important because it will provide quick access to the thousands of migrants who regularly cross into the United States illegally from Tijuana, which is considered the most concentrated crossing-point for undocumented immigrants throughout the U.S.-Mexico border.

A similar center already exists in Calexico, which abuts the Mexican border city of Mexicali, but U.S. farm groups have pushed for a facility more accessible to Tijuana.

“Tijuana’s the major crossing area, so this should help a lot,” said Wayne Smith, director of Alien Legalization for Agriculture, a consortium of agricultural interests that has worked to legalize formerly undocumented field laborers.

INS officials would not confirm the opening of the new center directly, but several indicated privately that they understood the facility would be inaugurated next week. INS authorities were scheduling a press conference for Tuesday at the Otay Mesa facility.

In addition, lawmakers on Thursday inserted language in a congressional spending bill that will greatly ease the burden on foreign farm workers arriving at designated U.S.-Mexico border crossings with the intention of filing for legal residence in the United States, said Bill Livingstone, a spokesman for U.S. Sen. Pete Wilson, R-Calif. INS officials agreed to the change, Livingstone said.

In order to qualify as a legal resident under the so-called Special Agricultral Worker status provisions of the immigration law, workers must demonstrate that they performed at least 90 days of farm labor in the United States during the one-year period that ended on May 1, 1986. The standards are more liberal than those for the better-known general amnesty program, which provides legal residence for foreigners who can show that they have lived illegally in the United States since Jan. 1, 1982. The easier standards reflect the political clout of Western growers, who have voiced concerns about losing their work force.

Under the new guidelines, the farm workers arriving at the border centers will be given 90-day passes to enter the United States after simply presenting U.S. immigration authorities with “non-frivolous” applications indicating that they qualify for legal residence under terms of the law, Livingstone said. The workers will not necessarily have to show documentation, Livingstone said, but must sign sworn statements detailing their eligibility. The 90-day period is designed to give the workers time to collect the needed documentation from past employers.

The relaxed application process will apparently apply exclusively to the border center at Calexico and the new facility to be opened along the border in San Diego. There were also rumors that another agricultural worker processing center may be opened at one or more Texas border crossings, possibly Laredo, but these could not be confirmed.

The change basically reinstitutes a system that had been in place until Nov. 1, when it expired. Under the current system, however, farm worker applicants must present documentary evidence of the time that they have worked in the United States before being allowed to enter the country. Since Nov. 1, officials said, authorities have not been issuing the 90-day entry passes.

Significant Development

In another significant development, Livingstone said, the INS has also agreed to eliminate a June 26, 1987, deadline by which time agricultural workers have to be in the United States in order to file legalization applications. Under current guidelines, farm laborers not in the United States by that date must file for legalization in their home countries. The deadline will now be dropped, the senator’s spokesman said.

The changes, incorporated in the language of a $600 billion omnibus spending bill currently under congressional debate, will become effective as soon as Congress passes the spending legislation and it is signed into law by the President, Livingstone said. Passage is expected early next week, he added.

The issue of documentations touches upon one of the central aspects of the agricultural legalization program. Farm worker advocates and industry representatives have long argued that it was unfair to place burdensome documentary requirements on migratory farm workers, as such laborers rarely maintain pay stubs and other potential evidence. U.S. authorities, on the other hand, have feared that such a program could be fraught with fraudulent applications.

In fact, officials have voiced concern about the high incidence of fraud at the Calexico facility.