The Nation - News from April 6, 1988

A federal judge in Washington refused to stay his order that the Reagan Administration broaden its standard for determining whether certain illegal aliens qualify for amnesty under the 1986 immigration law. U.S. District Judge Stanley Sporkin denied the Justice Department’s motion for a stay pending appeal of his ruling that overturned a regulation for processing amnesty requests from aliens who had legally entered the country but overstayed tourist or student visas. The regulation required that the illegal status of non-immigrant aliens be known to the Immigration and Naturalization Service as of Jan. 1, 1982, for them to qualify for amnesty. Sporkin said the law merely required that any federal agency have documentation, such as a tax or Social Security form, from which officials could conclude an alien’s status.