Enforcement Is New Focus of Immigration Law

Now that the historic amnesty program for illegal aliens has ended, the Immigration and Naturalization Service is preparing for tougher enforcement to pressure those not covered into leaving the country and to prevent more illegal aliens from entering.

With increases in employer investigators and Border Patrol manpower already under way, top-level agency officials are scheduled to meet in San Diego next week to decide how quickly and extensively to crack down on employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants and how to better seal the border. New guidelines for district offices will be sent out sometime after mid-May.

Inside the INS there is a debate over how aggressive the agency should be and “the people who want to get tough are winning,” one top INS official said.

Enforcement Debated

David S. North, a respected researcher on immigration issues at TransCentury Development Associates in Washington, said that immigrant rights activists will be urging INS not to aggressively enforce the sanctions, while Congress will do just the opposite. 572675176ways,” he said.

Rep. Daniel E. Lungren (R-Long Beach) said: “I don’t think INS has to be macho, but it will have to enforce” the new law. “If we have a significant increase of people coming across the border, we will see a more militant Congress.”

The heightened focus on enforcement, which is raising concerns among immigrant rights activists, comes as the INS hails the yearlong legalization program as a success, registering 1,433,066 people nationwide--910,270 in the Los Angeles district alone. Another 479,530 applied nationally--350,000 in Southern California--to the more liberal program for agricultural workers, a program that ends Nov. 30.

“We’re very proud today,” INS Commissioner Alan C. Nelson told a news conference Thursday. “We have completed phase one of the largest legalization program in world history.”

The figures, compiled Thursday morning, do not include applications still in the mail; nor do they include some that have been collected by private agencies that helped INS register immigrants.

Accused of Missing Millions

While critics say that the program failed to attract possibly millions of illegal immigrants who were eligible, with some pursuing lawsuits that will extend the program for certain groups of immigrants, attention clearly has shifted to the other two “prongs” of the 1986 immigration law.

In addition to legalization, the law calls for increased vigilance along the nation’s 2,000-mile Southern border to prevent illegal crossings. It also provides for penalties on employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens, ranging from $250 per alien up to $10,000 and jail terms of six months.

So far, INS has focused on educating employers about the law and it has issued almost 2,000 warnings. Fines, however, have been scarce; according to the INS’ latest figures, only 85 fine notices have gone out, and $38,000 has been collected out of a total of $256,900 in assessments.

That is expected to change. Starting June 1, the INS no longer will be required to issue warnings on the first offense. While Nelson resists portraying the change as a “crackdown,” he said that there will be a “gradual increase in the fine notices.”

As the fines increase, the INS is hoping that the publicity will deter other employers from hiring illegal aliens.

‘Front-Page News’

“In each city where we start to get fines against employers, it will be front-page news,” said David P. Nachtsheim, an INS official in the enforcement division.

As for illegal border crossings, Nelson acknowledged that apprehensions “continued to show an uncertain trend,” rising to 94,426 last month compared to 80,473 in April, 1987.

Hugh Brien, chief of the Border Patrol, asserted that his division is up to the task of combatting the problem. “Sure, there will be more focus on us now that the legalization program has closed,” he said, “but we’re prepared for that.”

Brien noted that by January, another 1,100 employees will be added to the patrol, bringing that branch of the INS up to 4,200. Similarly, the INS, which has 900 employees investigating employer sanctions violations, will add another 800 to 900 by the first of the year.

However, some government officials said it will be difficult to attract quality employees to those jobs, both of which pay a starting salary of $15,118.

Difficult to Monitor

Even with good employees, INS will have no easy task making its enforcement program work. Monitoring all the nation’s employers will prove extremely difficult, if not impossible, because there are so many and because many likely will resist the effort.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has 180,000 members nationwide, is preparing to “look for the horror stories” in the sanctions program, said Virginia Lamp Thomas, a chamber attorney. She added that businesses have let it be known that they do not want the program’s reporting requirements to consist of “crossing every t and dotting every i.”

One INS official likened the awesome task of plugging holes in the 2,000-mile border to “the Dutch boy with his finger in the dike,” but Brien said that “morale is excellent; I’m upbeat.”

At the San Diego meeting, officials will discuss new ways of detecting crossings and preventing them, “without putting up a Berlin Wall,” one official said.

Overzealous enforcement could be a problem, warned Warren Leiden, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Assn. “There are certain officers whose mouths are watering, who just can’t wait to whack employers with fines and raids,” he said.

‘Built Some Bridges’

Mario Moreno of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund said that the INS “has an opportunity. It built some bridges with the immigrant community” during the legalization program. “Maybe that experience will help rid the country of undocumented immigrants--or the INS can drop the ball and go straight to a heavy-handed enforcement program.”

At the news conference, INS officials constructed a profile of the amnesty applicants, reporting that the median age was 30, a little more than half were male, and almost half were married. Also, about half were either laborers or service industry workers.

Most, 71.2%, came from Mexico. The next highest percentage, 8.2%, came from El Salvador, while 2.7% were Guatemalan, 1.3% Filipino and 1.2% Colombian.

Staff writer Stephen Braun in Los Angeles contributed to this story.