INS Admits It Erred, Eases Proof Burden

U.S. immigration officials admitted Thursday that they mistakenly imposed unreasonable burdens of proof on hundreds of farm workers who applied for amnesty in San Diego and Imperial counties.

The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, responding to complaints from community groups, has begun notifying the affected applicants of the mistake, said Clifton Rogers, deputy district director for the INS in San Diego. Officials are sending letters to farm labor applicants--the number may top 1,000--scaling down broad requests for documentation demonstrating that they had worked as farm laborers for the 90-day period required under the law.

“We made a mistake, and we’re correcting it,” Rogers said.

‘Sufficient Evidence’

Farm worker applicants must submit documentation proving that they worked with perishable crops for at least 90 days between May, 1985, and May, 1986. The legislation requires that farm workers submit “sufficient evidence” to demonstrate their employment “as a matter of just and reasonable inference.” In the San Diego and Imperial counties cases, the INS now acknowledges, the required paper work exceeded that standard.

Among other things, INS letters sent to applicants in San Diego and Imperial counties directed applicants to provide the names of every laborer who worked for their particular labor contractor during the May 1985-86 period, and to state exactly how many days they worked. In other cases, applicants were asked to provide notarized affidavits with the names of all purchasers of their employers’ produce during that one-year period, as well as the names of the sheds where the produce was packed.

Advocates complained that the requirements were unjust, and the INS now says it agrees.

Rogers first said that the mistake only affected 100 farm-worker applicants, but he later acknowledged that more than 700 farm workers who applied in the INS Escondido office received the erroneous requests. Hundreds more field hands who applied in San Diego and El Centro were also given wrong information, Rogers conceded.

The admission comes at a time when immigrant advocates throughout California have expressed concern that the INS is so focused on rooting out fraud in the farm-worker amnesty program that officials are disqualifying legitimate applications and discouraging many other applicants.

“The position of the INS seems to be that anyone who waited this long to apply has got to be using fraud,” said Christine Brigagliano, an attorney with the California Rural Legal Aid Foundation, a San Francisco-based advocacy group, who staffs a hot line for complaints.

Among other things, critics charge that the INS has been interrogating amnesty recipients at the U.S.-Mexico border as they return to the United States, sometimes coercing them into “admitting” that they received amnesty through fraudulent means. The INS acknowledges seizing more than 200 temporary-residence cards from farm laborers who “admitted” using fraud, but officials deny any coercion.

Taping Interviews

Detractors also say the INS has in some cases prohibited workers’ legal representatives from accompanying them during interviews at INS offices and has threatened to turn applicants over to the U. S. Border Patrol if they lie, a charge denied by the INS. Officials have also begun videotaping some interviews with applicants, a move the INS says is necessary to reduce fraud, but which others say is clearly intimidating.

“These are uneducated people who get very confused with numbers and dates, and they get tongue-tied and told they’re lying,” Brigagliano said. “I’ve gotten complaints from Salinas, Stockton, San Jose, El Centro, San Diego. . . . “

INS officials have defended their tactics, stressing fraud rates that in some cases have topped 50%. “Fraud will be detected by the INS,” INS regional commissioner Harold Ezell warned in San Diego this week.

The comments reflect authorities’ growing concern in recent weeks with the unexpectedly large numbers of farm workers applying for amnesty. Almost 1 million field hands have applied nationwide. Earlier expectations ran up to 500,000. More than 500,000 have applied in California alone.

By contrast, more than 1.7 million applied for legal status under the general amnesty program, which required applicants to have lived continuously in the United States since 1982. The application period for that program expired last May. But farm workers can apply until Nov. 30, and officials have reported an upsurge in applications in recent weeks.