Amnesty Fee Waived for Tourist, Student Visa Violators

A federal judge has ruled that thousands of illegal aliens who violated terms of their student and tourist visas may apply for amnesty without paying a fee.

U.S. District Judge Stanley Sporkin this week ordered the Immigration and Naturalization Service to accept the applications without the customary $185 individual filing fee as part of his clarifications of an earlier ruling that eased the standards under which this group of aliens could apply for amnesty.

Also, in his clarifications, the judge overruled the INS on its interpretation of whether people who violated the terms of their visas were “known to the government” before Jan. 1, 1982.

Immigration experts said that the clarifications affect at least 50,000 people and will make it easier for them to apply for legal status under the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, which offers amnesty to people who lived in the country illegally and continuously--except for brief absences--since before Jan. 1, 1982.

Loophole Feared

Government officials fear that loosening the restrictions amounts to opening a loophole that could encourage far more than the 50,000 people to come forward and claim that they were illegal.

“We are very, very happy” about the judge’s decision, said Eleanor Pelta, an immigration lawyer with the firm of Arent, Fox, Kintner, Plotkin & Kahn, which handled the class-action suit filed by four groups against the government. “These people had been unlawfully precluded from applying.”

People affected by the judge’s ruling--mostly students and tourists who entered the country legally before 1982--will be able to apply free, but the INS will hold the applications until the issue is resolved. The Reagan Administration is expected to appeal the ruling, but Duke Austin, an INS spokesman, said Friday that no decision had been made on an appeal.

Last week the judge ruled that the INS requirement that people’s illegal status be “known to the government” to qualify for amnesty should mean that their status was known to any government agency, not necessarily to the INS.

Stricter Interpretation

But even after the judge’s ruling last week, the INS had maintained that when people cited, for example, a W-2 form from the Internal Revenue Service, to show that they worked illegally, they also had to show that their illegal status was known.

However, the judge disagreed, asserting that the mere fact that the documentation existed “would warrant the finding” that the alien’s status in the United States was unlawful, thus qualifying him for amnesty.

Moreover, Sporkin ordered the INS to reopen all cases for applicants who were denied consideration based on the invalid regulations. The judge said that the INS must notify these aliens.

The clarifications are a victory for advocates of illegal immigrants and represent the latest in a long line of contentious issues pitting the advocates against the INS. Advocates are certain to use the judge’s ruling to bolster their argument that the amnesty program should be extended beyond its scheduled May 4 deadline because so many issues in the program remain unresolved.

Legislation Pending

The House Judiciary Committee last week passed legislation that would extend the program until Nov. 30, and the Senate is expected to take up similar legislation after the Easter vacation ends next week. A bill before the Senate would extend the program by a year, but supporters are willing to settle for six months, as the House committee did. The Administration vigorously opposes an extension.

While the Administration and supporters of the extension battle over the issue, they agree on the need to register as many people as possible in the amnesty program. “We urge anyone who feels they qualify for the program to come forward,” said Austin of the INS.