Aliens Flock to Beat Deadline for Amnesty

Rushing to beat a midnight deadline, tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants flocked to federal offices in Southern California and across the nation today to register on the final day of the alien amnesty program.

As U.S. Immigration and Naturalization officials celebrated their program with mariachi bands and free food and balloons, illegal aliens besieged them with last-minute questions and struggled to master their application forms.

Outside an INS legalization office on Wilshire Boulevard in downtown Los Angeles, immigrants gathered in groups to read over each others’ forms and leaned on car hoods, mailboxes and flower planters to fill out the questions.

‘I Was Too Nervous’

“I didn’t have time to fill it out last night because I was too nervous,” said Gregoria Smith, a Guatemalan immigrant who bent over a limestone wall, copying from her son’s amnesty application.

Fernando De Dios, 21, alternated between English and Spanish as he coached other immigrants on how to fill out their forms at the agency’s East Los Angeles office. “If it hadn’t been for my mother pushing me, I wouldn’t be here,” he said.

Many immigrants reported that they had to wait until the program’s final hours before they were able to raise the $185 filing fee.

Adding to the crowds in some areas were those applying under other federal immigration programs who mistakenly believed they also faced deadlines. In recent days, thousands of immigrants have lined up outside the INS’ headquarters in downtown Los Angeles, only to learn that they could have shown up later.

1.5 Million Applicants Seen

At least 740,000 amnesty applications have been filed in the agency’s Los Angeles area district and INS officials are predicting that 1.5 million immigrants will have applied for the program nationwide by the midnight deadline.

Immigration experts contend that more than 500,000 aliens who were eligible for amnesty will miss out on the program and that millions more who arrived after the program’s 1982 cutoff date will remain in the country illegally.

In New York, a federal appeals court today extended the midnight deadline for amnesty applicants in New York state, giving some aliens with U.S.-born children on welfare another two weeks to register. State officials pressed for the extension because of confusion over how the program affected parents of U.S.-born children on welfare. Officials said no more than several hundred applicants will be covered by the extension.