INS Liberalizes Its Policy on Families of Legal Aliens

Under fire from some Latino groups and Congress, the Bush Administration on Friday liberalized an immigration policy to allow close relatives of legalized aliens to remain in the country while they wait to qualify for permanent residence.

The new “family fairness” policy affects tens of thousands of spouses and children--more than half living in California--who faced possible deportation because they entered the country after a 1982 cutoff on amnesty for illegal aliens. The new policy takes effect Feb. 14.

Gene McNary, commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, scrapped a set of vague, 3-year-old guidelines that he said were interpreted narrowly by regional officials oriented toward deportation and broadly by those inclined to make humanitarian choices.

“Many thousands who may be eligible for benefits were not applying because of confusion and fear they might be deported if they came forward,” McNary said at a news conference.

In Orange County, immigration advocates were pleased with McNary’s action. But they also were cautious about how the new program will be implemented by local INS district offices.

“It’s a good step, and I think it’s an important development in the legalization process here,” said Jaime Soto, vicar for Hispanic Ministries with the Catholic Diocese in Orange. “It was one of the contributing factors to the confusion of the legalization program.”

Soto, whose work as Catholic vicar puts him in contact with hundreds of thousands of Spanish-speaking immigrants, said the biggest benefit from Friday’s decision will come in the job market.

“In some cases, it will mean the difference between a job in the county’s underground economy, or a better-paying one in the regular economy,” Soto said.

In his new directive to field offices, McNary expanded the number of family members eligible for relief from deportation, authorized them to obtain work permits and made it clear that the policy should be implemented in “a consistent and humanitarian manner.”

A Latino civil rights group and two lawmakers who were advocating similar action praised the new policy. Another Latino group was less enthusiastic, while an organization that favors tighter immigration restrictions harshly assailed the change.

“Commissioner McNary deserves credit for acting quickly to avert the separation of hundreds--and potentially tens of thousands--of innocent children and spouses of newly legalized persons,” said Cecilia Munoz of the National Council of La Raza. “This may be a turning point for INS.”

Sen. John H. Chafee (R-R. I.), who last year won Senate approval of an amendment blocking deportations that split families, was “very, very pleased” with McNary’s directive, an aide said.

The previous INS guidelines had drawn repeated criticism from Latino organizations and members of Congress, and at least one advocacy group said that the changes do not go far enough to address the problems faced by relatives of legal aliens.

Francisco Garcia of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund called the new policy “just interim relief for families who face separation.” He said that “the only positive thing” was work authorization for affected family members.

McNary’s action was attacked as “over-broad, arbitrary, capricious and illegal” by Dan Stein of the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

Stein noted that the 3 million illegal aliens who have applied for amnesty are prohibited from receiving federal cash assistance for years. But, he asserted, the spouses and children who are ineligible for amnesty are able under McNary’s new policy to receive “the full range of federal entitlements,” such as Social Security. “That’s not fair,” he said.

Asked about Stein’s assertion, McNary said: “We believe the fact they’ll have work permits will more than cover any benefit drain on the community or state.”

McNary’s directive provides a renewable, one-year shield against deportation to spouses and children under 18 who can establish that they have been living in the United States with a legal alien family member since Nov. 6, 1986, and have not been convicted of a felony or three misdemeanors in this country.

The policy will enable families to stay together while applications for permanent visas wind through a 10-year bureaucratic maze.

Sister Carmen Sarati, a Catholic nun at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Santa Ana, said just this week she received a call from a distraught Mexican mother who needed help.

“She wanted to try and legalize her son, who was born in Mexico and living there,” Sarati said. “She and her husband have qualified as permanent residents, but she had to provide INS much more identification and documentation for her son. They were making her jump through hoops.”

About 3.1 million people have applied for amnesty, 55% of them living in California. Slightly more than half the California applicants live in the Los Angeles-Long Beach metropolitan area.

The number of families affected by the new policy could not be determined Friday. But a 1988 La Raza study of legalization applicants found that as many as 47% had family members in the United States who did not qualify for amnesty.

Staff writer David Reyes contributed to this story from Orange County.