Falsified Alien Forms Held in Thousands

Thousands of people who falsified farm worker amnesty applications will get permanent resident status starting next month under the 1986 immigration law, the New York Times reported.

The program, which offered farm workers a one-time amnesty, was expected to accommodate 250,000, but more than 1.3 million illegal aliens applied for legalization, the newspaper reported in today’s editions.

Federal officials and immigration experts estimate that between 250,000 and 650,000 applications are fraudulent, the paper said.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service has identified 398,000 cases of possible fraud but admits that it does not have the manpower or money to prosecute individual applicants, the story said.

The INS is to begin issuing permanent resident status to amnesty applicants on Dec. 1, and officials said they were approving 94% of the applicants overall.

Supporters say the amnesty program has ensured the nation a cheap, reliable and legal supply of farm workers and has taken an important step toward legitimizing many of the nation’s illegal aliens.

But critics note cases like that of Larry and Sharon Marval of Newark, N.J., who pleaded guilty last year to charges of immigration fraud after investigators alleged they were part of an operation that helped about 1,000 aliens get amnesty with falsified documents showing they had all worked on just 30 acres of farmland.

The farm workers’ amnesty was a last-minute addition to the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which sought to halt illegal immigration.

It included a general amnesty offering a chance at permanent resident status to those illegal aliens who could prove that they had lived in the United States since before Jan. 1, 1982. The act also made it a crime to employ illegal aliens.