Californians Gauge Effect of Immigration Reform

For Southern California immigrant advocates, President Clinton’s sweeping immigration reform proposals are disappointing measures that will cut back on immigrants’ rights but are unlikely to have much impact on the continuing illicit flow of humanity.

“I don’t know that I would have called President Clinton a friend of immigrants, but I certainly would have expected more from a Democratic President,” said Vibiana Andrade, national immigrants’ rights director for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. “He’s taking a law-enforcement approach to a very complicated issue.”

But for those seeking restrictions on immigration, the President’s wide-ranging program drew praise as a long-overdue crackdown.

“We’re very happy that the President is moving in that direction,” said Ben Seeley, Southern California program director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which seeks to reduce new arrivals. “After five years of gloom and doom, we’re starting to see a lot of things happen.”

Nowhere does the issue of illegal immigration resonate with more force than in California, which, according to many estimates, absorbs as many as half of all immigrants--legal and illegal--entering the United States.

One of the White House’s key reforms targets the beleaguered system for granting political asylum for those fleeing persecution abroad. The President would create a system of “expedited” repatriation of immigrants whose asylum applications are deemed groundless upon their arrival.

However, many critics fear that overzealous immigration officers could send back legitimate refugees to repressive regimes, possibly endangering their lives without the due process protections.

Others maintain that revisions of the asylum procedures were long overdue, since many economic migrants have taken advantage of lengthy appeals to prolong their stays in the United States.

U.S. immigration officials say asylum claimants arriving at Los Angeles International Airport have been reduced dramatically since the fall of 1991, when authorities began incarcerating almost all airport asylum applicants. Fewer than 100 now arrive at LAX each month, authorities say, compared with more than 1,000 a month two years ago.

But California leads the nation in the number of so-called “affirmative” asylum applications: those filed by immigrants who are already residing in the United States. A huge backlog of 300,000 cases is pending before U.S. immigration authorities, half of them involving Central Americans, mostly residents of Southern California.

The White House would double the number of asylum officers in an effort to reduce the backlog, while revising guidelines to expedite decisions.

Central to the President’s plan is his intention to cut down on illegal entries from Mexico.

The White House would add Border Patrol officers and bolster penalties for smugglers, increasing prospective prison terms from five to 10 years.

However, authorities say the financial lures of moving human contraband--smugglers can earn $3,000 for transporting 10 people from Tijuana to Los Angeles in a night--mean that there are always recruits ready to take on the job.

Many expressed skepticism that a reinforced Border Patrol will help. Poverty and warfare continue to propel people northward, despite a doubling of Border Patrol staff in the last 10 years.