INS Made $8 Million in Refugee Fees, Advocates Say : Immigration: Documents filed in suit say U.S. profited from excessive charges in program to grant Salvadorans 18 months protected status.

Immigrant rights advocates filed papers in federal court Tuesday charging that the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service has made an $8-million profit on a humanitarian program granting Salvadoran refugees 18 months haven in the United States.

Congress had ordered that enrollment fees for the program, known as Temporary Protected Status, be kept at a reasonable level to cover operating costs.

But attorneys representing the Salvadorans in an ongoing class-action suit against the government said in papers filed in U.S. District Court in Sacramento that INS figures show that the agency is charging far more than necessary.

“This either indicates gross incompetence by the INS in ignoring the data or the agency purposely misled the courts and the public,” said Robert Rubin, managing attorney of the San Francisco Lawyers’ Committee for Urban Affairs.

INS General Counsel Grover J. Rees responded that the Lawyers’ Committee is basing its complaint on a cost projection for the program of $13.8 million.

Subtracting the estimated cost from the actual money raised through the program, the groups came up with the $8-million difference.

But Rees noted that the cost estimate may eventually turn out to be inaccurate.

“This is an enormous program and sometimes it’s hard to know what costs and revenues will be,” he said. “Whether we take in a little more or a little less, this program is definitely designed not to make a profit.”

While he conceded there may be some surplus after the application period is over Oct. 31, he discounted charges that the agency was trying to make a profit on the enrollment fees.

“When we saw the fees were higher than necessary before, we lowered the fees,” he said, refering to a fee reduction in May. “It’s not out of the question to lower them again, although there isn’t much time left.”

The program was approved by Congress last year in a groundbreaking effort to allow people fleeing war or natural disaster in their homelands to legally reside in this country. As of September, 164,000 Salvadorans have applied.

Salvadorans were granted 18 months of refuge starting from January, 1991, to June, 1992.

The enrollment fee was originally set at $225 over the 18-month period, plus an additional $35 every six months for a work permit.

After months of protest from immigrant rights activists, the INS reduced the fees in May to $75 plus the work authorization fee, which by then had increased to $60 every six months.

Refugee activists welcomed the reduction, but added that the program for Salvadorans was still far more expensive than a similar program offered to Kuwaitis, Lebanese, Liberians and Somalians, who were being charged only $50 to enroll.

The $8-million surplus was revealed in papers Rubin filed Tuesday in connection with the class-action suit, which is aimed at forcing the INS to waive fees for refugees who make less than the federal poverty level--about $6,600 for an individual.

The INS has adopted a different standard for deciding who gets a waiver--one that immigrant rights groups say is harder for refugees to meet. The lawyers committee sought a restraining order Tuesday preventing the INS from implementing its fee waiver rules.