Judge Orders Broader Rules for Amnesty

A federal judge today ordered the Reagan Administration to broaden its standard for determining whether illegal aliens who overstayed tourist and student visas can now obtain amnesty under the 1986 immigration law.

U.S. District Judge Stanley Sporkin ruled that the regulation requiring that such illegal aliens be known to immigration authorities as of Jan. 1, 1982, violated Congress’s intention that such people be known to any U.S. government agency.

The decision applies to non-immigrant aliens who illegally overstayed their tourist or student visas or otherwise violated the terms of the legal visit to this country.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service regulation “effectively denies legalization to an entire class of aliens” who lived and worked in the United States but had not necessarily come to the attention of immigration authorities, Sporkin said in a decision made public today.