INS Policy Brings Protests, Longer Waits

Each morning this week, a crowd of bleary-eyed people pressed forward toward the doors of the Immigration and Nationalization Service office in the San Fernando Valley.

Many of the immigrants from Latin America, India and Asia had spent days in line outside the office, sleeping in cars or camped out in the front parking lot.

“I’ve been here since Sunday,” a woman named Maria said in Spanish on Thursday. “I came all the way from Palmdale. This is unjust.”

But each morning, private security guards giving orders in Spanish and English permitted only about 15 applicants daily to enter the Parthenia Boulevard office, down from 50 to 60 applicants served daily in previous weeks.

The others got back in line, members of a tense sidewalk community that has existed since a regionwide INS policy was introduced this month which drastically reduces the number of applicants for legalization processed each day.

The result of the cutback has been angry crowds, excruciating day-and-night vigils and scuffles broken up by police officers outside the Parthenia Boulevard office and other offices that administer the legalization program throughout Southern California and the Western region, according to immigration officials and immigrants rights groups.

“There have been near-riots outside offices,” said Theresa Sanchez, executive director of the Labor Immigrant Assistance Project of the AFL-CIO.

Lawsuits filed three years ago by the League of United Latin American Citizens and Catholic Social Services allege that thousands of immigrants who met the criteria of living in the United States since 1981 were unfairly excluded from applying for legalization in 1987 because they made brief trips out of the country. While those cases are pending in federal court, court orders require the INS to grant work authorization to late applicants for amnesty whose status is tied to the lawsuits.

Bill King, Western regional director of the INS immigration reform program, acknowledged Friday that the change in the screening of applicants has produced hardship and confusion.

“I know that it’s causing problems for these people, but we are kind of in a bind,” said King, who pointed out that the region encompassing California, Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii and Guam accounts for half of the 65,000 lawsuit-connected applications received nationwide. “The crush of business has exceeded our personnel resources . . . I am very much concerned about the safety of these people and the safety of our own personnel.”

Prior to June 6, applicants were given a brief initial screening and scheduled for later interviews to determine their eligibility for work authorization; the lines were long, but they moved with relative speed.

However, King said officials have decided to hold in-depth interviews on the first visit rather than schedule appointments later because they have determined the delay violates the court order.

King and other officials also said the policy change results from increasing concern about fraudulent applications, a significant lack of employees and the demands of the program’s main mission: administrating the second phase of the amnesty program in which applicants complete educational requirements to become permanent residents.

Immigrant rights advocates said the move worsens the plight of an entire class of immigrants who have already been unfairly excluded from the system.

“The policy of only accepting a handful of applications must stop,” said Peter Schey, a lawyer at the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law who represents the League of United Latin American Citizens and Catholic Social Services in the two lawsuits. “It’s absurd. It’s the worst kind of management possible. If the INS were running a corporation they would be bankrupt.”

Schey questioned the argument that the original practice of brief reviews to schedule later appointments was ended because it violates the court order. He said speedier processing would at least get undocumented applicants into the system and reduce their fear of losing jobs or being deported.

“I would rather see them appear on a file and get a receipt of some kind,” he said. “Something that will end the immediacy of their clandestine existences, their fear of getting swept up in an INS raid . . . Underlying all of this is a basic hostility to the lawsuits.”

Only a handful of people were in line Friday morning outside the Parthenia Boulevard office, where police said complaints from surrounding businesses have prompted extra patrols and sporadic citations for loitering and jaywalking.

Julio Montez, a teen-age entrepreneur pushing an ice cream cart labeled “Delicias de Michoacan,” said business had slowed down considerably after the day’s 15 applicants were ushered in starting at 7:30 a.m.

“They’ll be back Sunday night,” he said. “There will be a whole lot of them.”