INS ‘Fiesta’ Seeks to Aid Last-Minute Amnesty Bids

Hopeful yet not overly optimistic, Mary Crespo went to the Wilmington Recreation Center Saturday to find out whether she has any chance of living legally in this country.

As costumed children performed Mexican folk dances at the “Amnesty Fiesta,” Crespo told federal immigration officials her story: She came to the United States in 1978, returning to Mexico in 1982 for four years. She knew that to qualify, immigrants must show proof that they have lived in the United States with only brief absences since at least 1982, but she asked nevertheless.

“I think I have a good record,” said the 28-year-old Hawthorne resident, who does factory work for an aircraft company and is studying for her high school equivalency diploma. “I have always worked and gone to school and I never had any problems.”

End of Amnesty

With just a few days to go until the historic amnesty period for illegal aliens ends, the federal immigration counselors recommended that she take her problem to the Immigration and Naturalization Service office in Torrance for a definitive answer.

She left the Amnesty Fiesta clutching a sheaf of legalization documents and a complimentary calendar with a picture of the Statue of Liberty against the backdrop of the Stars and Stripes. Wednesday’s date was circled in red.

“Live the dream that brought you to America,” the calendar beckoned. “Legalization ends May 4. Apply now.”

Throughout the South Bay, thousands of immigrants are rushing to file or see if they qualify for amnesty before Wednesday’s midnight deadline. The Amnesty Fiesta was intended to promote the program by providing application forms and answers to routine questions.

To handle the last-minute filing crush, the INS’ Torrance Legalization Office is open this weekend, and until midnight through Wednesday.

Carlos Tellez, chief of the Torrance office at 555 W. Redondo Beach Blvd., said his staff sees 700 people and processes 500 forms daily; he expects those figures to increase to 1,200 and 700 this week. Although the majority of those who apply in Torrance are from the South Bay, Tellez said he has had applicants from as far away as Oxnard and Riverside.

“People are dropping off applications like crazy,” he said.

Immigration officials said that since the program began a year ago, the Torrance office has handled about 46,000 applications for amnesty under both the legalization program and a program for seasonal agricultural workers, with the vast majority--44,240--applying for legalization.

In the Los Angeles district, which has provided the bulk of the nation’s amnesty applicants, 670,634 applications had been processed as of Thursday, 593,195 of them under the regular legalization program.

Yet despite a dramatic, last-minute surge in applications, officials say the total is expected to fall far short of the INS’ initial national prediction of 4 million.

That is why the Torrance office put on the Amnesty Fiesta, which offered lunch and entertainment as well as coupons for the required medical examinations at a reduced rate, as an 11th-hour attempt to persuade illegal aliens to file. The INS will also have a booth at the Cinco de Mayo festival in Wilmington today.

Like the amnesty program itself, the fiesta, which ran from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., produced less participation than the INS had hoped.

By 2 p.m., about 200 people had dropped by. “They’ve been coming in a little bit at a time but not at all like we expected,” Tellez said. “With all the advertising we did . . . we expected at least 500.”

However, business has been brisk at the South Bay’s privately run legalization centers, where immigrants who have already decided to apply are providing plenty of work for counselors like Maurilio Ochoa of Loving Shepherd Lutheran Church in Gardena.

“If I would be able . . . I would take at least 50 a day . . ., “ he said, “but it’s almost impossible because I’m by myself now. They all waited until the last minute to apply thinking the extension would be approved, but so far no luck.”

On Thursday, the U.S. Senate chose not to act on a measure that would have extended the one-year amnesty period by seven months.

In Hawthorne, at SER-JOBS for Progress, director Charles Villanueva said Friday that he is seeing “a lot of last-minute troopers.” But he said there has been confusion about the extension, and added many applicants have filed the initial forms but are not following through. He also said he has had trouble persuading immigrants to trust his agency, which is funded by the government.

“They think we’re part of the government. . . . Especially people that have been persecuted by government all their lives. . . . This morning, one lady came in and just when she was supposed to sign all her papers she said ‘No, I’ve changed my mind, I’m going back home.’ . . . The bottom line is no trust.”

Villanueva also criticized the INS for running events like the fiesta, saying “seeing the head of the department in a sombrero doesn’t make them trusting.” He said illegal immigrants generally feel more comfortable having churches help them, because they know there is a separation between church and state.

Indeed, about 200 amnesty-seekers packed the legalization center at the Holy Family Catholic Church in Wilmington Saturday. Catholic Charities, which runs the center, set aside the weekend to work with only those who have already filed their applications but had yet to pay their fees. Others were told to come back Monday.

The INS application fees are $185 for an individual and $420 for a family, but that does not include the cost of medical examinations, fingerprinting, photos and hundreds of dollars in fees many immigrants have paid to private lawyers and legalization centers approved by the INS. For example, Catholic Charities, which runs legalization centers throughout the Los Angeles area, charges $100 per person and $300 per family, above the fee that goes to the INS.

Many illegal immigrants seek help from these centers and other intermediaries because they fear that if they show up at an INS office and do not qualify for amnesty, they will be arrested or deported.

One man, a Canadian who did not want to be named, said the INS arrested him in 1974 and held him for three days in the basement of the federal building in downtown Los Angeles.

“I’m terrified,” he said, explaining why he sought help from the center at Holy Family. “I feel like I’ve been given a stolen bar of soap and there are going to be gas shower heads.”

Francisco Perez of Harbor City was among those who paid up Saturday at Holy Family Catholic Church. His application will now be forwarded to the INS for review. Perez said it took a long time for him to produce the documentation necessary to show he has lived in the United States since 1982.

“When I started here I have no papers,” he said. “I never save anything, so now when this came in I have to start looking for everything.”

When the amnesty period ends, the INS will begin cracking down on immigrants who do not live here legally, and especially on employers who hire them. For people like Mary Crespo, that means an uncertain future. If the INS turns her down, she said, she may see a lawyer to try another means of obtaining permanent resident status.

“I want to become a resident,” Crespo said. “I will stay until they kick me out.”