For Farm Workers, It’s Hurry Up and Wait

Thousands of Mexican field laborers have converged on this border city with intentions of filing for amnesty, only to be told they must wait for weeks before submitting their applications. Many have been stranded here without money and food. The problem: a shortage of U.S. immigration staffers in neighboring Calexico, where the applications are processed.

The lengthy delays, exacerbated by immigration staff cutbacks, have caused chaos in this sweltering border city, where hundreds of frustrated farm workers spend their days waiting aimlessly in a tunnel that is part of the customs complex, their wide-brimmed country hats pulled over their eyes, newspapers and cardboard strips serving as beds. Many have chosen to jump the border illegally, as they have done for years, or return to their homes in the Mexican interior.

“I’ve been sleeping on the streets, in train stations, in parks, wherever,” said Alfredo Gonzalez, 20, from the interior state of Michoacan, who, like most of his fellow field workers, carried only enough cash to cover the $185 amnesty application fee and his travel expenses to California’s Central Valley, where he hoped to find field work. “Sometimes someone gives me a taco to eat.”

The severe logjam here, now forcing applicants to wait up to six weeks, is perhaps the most dramatic manifestation of the problems facing a key remaining piece of the amnesty process--the program for so-called seasonal agricultural workers.

Until now, the farm laborer initiative has remained largely in the background while attention focused on the general amnesty effort, which applied to undocumented immigrants who have lived in the United States since 1982. The application period for that program expired amid much fanfare on May 4 after some 1.5 million signed up.

But farm workers have until Nov. 30 to apply under a related effort. The farm labor program raises the possibility of permanent legal status for those who performed at least 90 days of work with fresh vegetables and certain “perishable commodities” during the one-year period that ended on May 1, 1986.

The farm worker plan, with its more liberal criteria and longer application period, was included in the 1986 immigration reform legislation at the insistence of Western growers, who feared losing their staple of plentiful and inexpensive laborers, mostly from Mexico. Eastern and Midwestern growers make wider use of legal workers.

Although some 500,000 applicants have signed up for the farm worker program--half of them in California--critics say that confusion, a lack of official attention and unduly stringent guidelines have hindered the program.

“The immigration service has made it extremely difficult for people to attain (legal) status,” said Tina Poplawski, an attorney with the Farmworker Justice Fund in Washington, D.C., one of a number of advocacy groups that have filed suit seeking to open up the program for more laborers.

Many farm workers, accustomed to being paid off the books, have reported difficulties obtaining paper work such as payroll records documenting their time in the United States. There have been reports of employers charging applicants excessive fees for the documentation.

Allegations of fraud have also plagued the farm worker program, particularly among applicants in Calexico, where officials say such deception is evident in as many as half of the cases, and among Haitian immigrants applying in Florida, second after California in the number of applications. The extensive fraud, authorities say, is related to the relatively relaxed application guidelines.

Worker Shortage Feared

The program may have wide ramifications for Western agriculture. After Nov. 30, growers will be subject to stiff fines and potential jail terms for hiring undocumented workers. Agricultural groups, which have pushed the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service to put more emphasis on the program, have expressed concern that low turnout could translate into a future shortage of field workers.

“We hope that the INS will pay a little more attention,” said Roy Gabriel, who heads a Sacramento-based growers’ group called Alien Legalization for Agriculture, which has assisted in the sign-up effort.

In reply to criticisms, INS officials note that the half-million farm worker applications received so far have already topped their initial projections of 400,000 for the duration of the program. Critics respond that no one really knows how many may qualify and INS disarray and harshness could result in many farm workers being excluded from what is likely a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Despite claims that many are being rejected, INS officials say that the legalization applications of 92% of farm workers processed so far have been accepted, only a little lower than the 98% acceptance rate for general amnesty applicants.

“I think . . . the numbers of applications indicate a success,” said Duke Austin, an INS spokesman in Washington.

Third Held for Review

But agency officials, noting the potential for fraud, also acknowledge that almost one-third of the agricultural applications submitted nationwide are being held for review, a fact that has led some observers to anticipate an eventual higher rate of denial. For poor farm workers, rejection leaves few alternatives.

“These aren’t the kind of people who can afford lengthy appeals,” said Cheryl Little, supervising attorney with the Haitian Refugee Center in Miami, which is planning legal action against the INS stemming from what it claims is a high rejection rate among Haitian applicants.

As for the backup at Calexico, officials say they began bolstering the staff this week, with the goal of soon increasing manpower by more than one-third and expanding hours. They hope to cut into the long backlog of applicants, raising the number of applications processed daily from 500 to 800. The delays, INS officials acknowledge, were worsened by recent staff cutbacks that resulted from long-scheduled transfers.

“I don’t think it’s a good situation,” said William King, INS regional director of immigration reform in Los Angeles, who acknowledged that the demand here has exceeded official expectations. “But . . . I don’t have infinite resources.”

Roy Gabriel, the growers’ representative, called the situation at Calexico “intolerable.”

Crush in April, May

The rush at the border here was particularly acute in April and early May, as up to 2,000 farm workers arrived daily, believing mistakenly that the May 4 deadline applied to them. Although applicants once waited along the border fence, beneath the searing desert sun that caused many to pass out, Mexican officials moved the line some weeks ago into the tunnel, where there is a measure of protection.

While the daily crush has abated somewhat since May 4, its legacy is a bulging waiting list of more than 20,000 workers. Early last week, incredulous applicants were being told to return on June 24.

The INS farm worker office in Calexico, like sister operations along the border in Otay Mesa in San Diego and in Laredo, Tex., was set up at the port of entry last year at the behest of farmers concerned about workers unable to file applications in Mexico. Workers can file without having to enter the United States illegally.

As of last week, the Calexico facility had processed about 50,000 applicants, making it probably the busiest farm worker sign-up site in the nation. Once they manage to submit their paper work, most applicants are allowed to remain in the United States for 90 days, sufficient time to complete their applications at INS offices in the U.S. interior.

‘This Is Unjust’

But the delays among those waiting here have caused widespread frustration. Workers mill about clutching envelopes containing their applications, often the only luggage among these migrants, accustomed as they are to traveling light. Many say their long-time patrones (bosses) are expecting them shortly in fields from San Diego to Washington state.

“This is unjust,” said Carlos Gonzalez, 50, who arrived with his 69-year-old father, Joaquin, three weeks ago, seeking to beat the May 4 deadline, only to be told he would have to wait three weeks before getting his papers and continuing on to his destination, the fields near Stockton, where father and son have toiled for decades.

“We have work waiting for us on the other side,” a distraught Carlos Gonzalez said as he waited on line in the tunnel last week, the treasured applications occupying a small plastic shopping bag. “We only want to work.”