Local News in Brief : Gustafson Decides to Stay on at INS

Los Angeles Immigration and Naturalization Service District Director Ernest Gustafson, who announced last month that he planned to leave the service this spring, said Tuesday that he has changed his mind and will remain in the post.

“I received many, many calls from people in the community who said I should stay and from INS employees who wanted to know why I was leaving,” he said. “I didn’t have an answer.”

Gustafson, who oversaw implementation of the massive amnesty program in the five-county district that took in nearly half the applications filed in the nation, said he wanted to remain at least through the end of the program--meaning at least a year or two--in order to “help people pass the final bridge” toward citizenship.

INS Western Regional Commissioner Harold Ezell said that Gustafson’s decision to withdraw his resignation was enthusiastically received by him and by their superiors in Washington.

Ezell noted that Gustafson, along with popular Latino disc jockey Luis Roberto (El Tigre) Gonzalez and himself, formed the “Trio Amnistia,” which made public appearances across the Southwest to promote the amnesty program.

“The Trio Amnistia lives on,” Ezell said.