Tough New Rules Loom for Seekers of Asylum : Immigration: A stricter work permit provision is the most controversial of changes taking effect Jan. 4. Fraud, backlog have been problems.

Juan Francisco Cordero Trejo, who fled his native Guatemala in 1990--just ahead of the death squads, he says--has been working legally as a hotel maintenance man while his application for asylum grinds through the judicial system. Just last month, the U.S. Court of Appeals vacated an earlier denial and sent the case back for new consideration.

“If I hadn’t been able to work, I don’t know how I would have survived,” said Cordero, whose wife and four daughters remain in Guatemala. “One can’t live on air for four years.”

Yet, under revised procedures unveiled earlier this month, tens of thousands of asylum seekers such as Cordero would be barred from employment for up to six months--double the current delay. Moreover, many would be prohibited from working for years if, as in the case of Cordero, their applications are turned down and decisions are appealed.

The new get-tough attitude on work permits is among the most controversial aspects of a sweeping overhaul and streamlining of the nation’s system for granting asylum to foreign nationals who claim a “well-founded fear” of political, religious or ethnic persecution in their homelands.

The long-awaited revisions, effective Jan. 4, are the centerpiece of the Clinton Administration’s avowed efforts to clean up a beleaguered asylum process reeling beneath massive fraud and an ever-expanding backlog. In the past, many immigrants entered bogus asylum claims in an end-around maneuver to gain working papers, gridlocking the entire system and contributing to the erosion of public confidence in refugee and immigration policy so evident during the heated Proposition 187 debate in California.

The Administration unveiled reform proposals last spring, but deleted several of the most controversial proposals--including a planned $130 filing fee--in the final blueprint.

The revisions still amount to some of the most far-reaching changes since enactment of the Refugee Act of 1980, the landmark legislation that formally enshrined the humanitarian notion of asylum in U.S. law, based on United Nations protocols.

“We can now put real force into our determination to stop asylum abuse,” Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner Doris Meissner said in outlining the overhaul. “These reforms re-establish a balance between compassion and control.”

The new measures will have a particularly pronounced impact in California, which generates far more applications than any other state--about 40% of the more than 425,000 backlogged petitions. Guatemalans and Salvadorans account for almost half of all pending cases nationwide, but citizens of more than 150 nations now seek safe haven each year.

Despite the extensive streamlining, officials acknowledge that it will take years to reduce the bulging asylum backlog, which will grow considerably next year with the addition of tens of thousands of Salvadorans whose protected status expires Saturday. (Under settlement of a suit alleging INS bias against many Central Americans, most affected Salvadorans will receive working papers upon filing.) For the moment, INS administrators hope to keep pace with newly filed cases--now running at about 150,000 applications a year, an almost threefold increase since 1990.

“The idea is, at first, to get current receipts under control, and then start pecking away at the backlog,” said Christine Davidson, senior policy analyst with the INS asylum division.

The agency’s objective is to grant meritorious claims within 60 days and limit overall processing times--including adjudications before immigration judges--to six months. That would represent a substantial speedup of the current process, which generally takes from 18 to 24 months.

To accomplish what officials acknowledge is an ambitious goal--others call it unrealistic--the INS plans to more than double the number of officers hearing asylum cases, from 150 to 334. Immigration judges, whose workload is likely to increase significantly, would be increased from 116 to 179.

Officials also pledged to expedite deportation of unsuccessful asylum seekers, though many experts are skeptical. The INS has long been assailed for its inability to find and repatriate thousands of foreign nationals already ordered deported, including convicted criminals.

Some contend that the much-ballyhooed changes amount to little more than regulatory tinkering that do little to root out widespread abuse and seemingly intractable delays.

“They’re playing some internal administrative games,” said Dan Stein, executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a Washington, D.C.-based group that favors restrictions on new arrivals.

More profound reforms, Stein said, will be forthcoming next year in the now Republican-dominated Congress, where lawmakers are poised for sweeping revisions--such as greatly narrowing eligibility for asylum and summarily barring some asylum seekers who arrive at U.S. airports and borders. Such proposals, often proposed but never enacted, may stand a better chance of success, analysts say, in today’s political climate that is increasingly hostile to immigration.

Notwithstanding their ire about the new delays in granting working papers, immigrant advocates applauded the omission of what many considered the two most onerous proposed revisions: the $130 filing fee and a directive that would have denied many applicants interviews with asylum officers.

“Because the mood in California, among other places, is what it is, I guess that I’m relatively relieved that the asylum regulations are not as bad as I thought they might be,” said Bill Frelick, senior policy analyst with the U.S. Committee for Refugees, a private, nonprofit group in Washington.

The fee plan evoked outrage because, critics charged, it would have made asylum a privilege for those who could afford it, placing a particular burden on entire families who would have been charged $130 per person. Meanwhile, critics said that doing away with now-mandated interviews would have stripped many applicants of an essential opportunity to present their cases adequately. In the final version, interviews were retained for most all applicants, with the notable exception of convicted felons.

But while dropping those hotly disputed proposals, the final plan includes several controversial revisions--especially the up to six-month delays in issuing working papers and the ban on employment for rejected asylum seekers filing appeals. The crackdown was needed, authorities argued, to dissuade fraudulent claimants from filing strictly to secure employment authorization.

Yet the change, critics say, poses a severe hardship for a population that often arrives with no money and no network of friends and kin to help and is ineligible for most government aid. The new restrictions, many contend, will short-circuit appeals by asylum seekers unable to afford lawyers, while forcing many to work without papers--an activity that federal authorities are keen to curtail.

“You’re going to drive people more and more into the underground economy,” said Jeanne Butterfield, senior policy analyst with the American Immigration Lawyers Assn.

To speed applications, the new rules also greatly alter the role of the nation’s overburdened asylum officer corps, which now issue both approvals and denials. Applicants turned down by asylum officers routinely apply anew in a court setting before immigration judges--a two-tiered process that some argue is vital, but others condemn as duplicative.

“The immigrant advocates want every asylum hearing to be the procedural equivalent of a murder trial,” complained Stein of the Federation for American Immigration Reform. “Well, you shouldn’t get O.J.’s process in an asylum proceeding.”

Beginning Jan. 4, asylum officers will generally no longer issue denials, but instead will concentrate on granting approvals of clearly meritorious applications. In less clear-cut instances, the officers will pass cases on to immigration judges for formal hearings.

The hope, officials say, is to facilitate processing of legitimate cases and discourage spurious claimants.

Some critics worry that the revision could lead to fewer grants of asylum--while Stein and allies fear additional approvals. Both sides caution that the new burden could overwhelm the caseloads of immigration judges as the new procedures become effective next month.

An ominous portent, according to some observers, is a relatively little-noticed revision that allows the return of asylum seekers to so-called “safe countries of asylum” that they traveled through en route to the United States. Although U.S. officials would first have to sign agreements with other nations, many fear a scenario such as is now unfolding in Europe, where refugees are said to be “in orbit,” bounced from one unwilling host nation to another in search of safe haven.

“Europe is a step ahead of us in terms of taking restrictive measures, but I don’t think the United States is that far behind,” said Frelick of the U.S. Committee for Refugees. “The Europeans have been talking about ‘Fortress Europe’ for a decade or so, but I’m beginning to think in terms of ‘Fortress North America.’ ”

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Asylum Applications

Of the 560,000 asylum cases completed since 1980, about 12% were approved, 37% were denied, and slightly more than half were closed because the applicants died, withdrew petitions or did not respond to INS interview requests. Here is a look at the number of people who have applied to the INS for asylum, and cases completed each year:

YEAR CASES FILED COMPLETED 1980 26,512 2,000 1981 61,566 4,521 1982 33,296 11,326 1983 26,091 25,447 1984 24,295 54,320 1985 16,622 28,528 1986 18,889 45,792 1987 26,107 44,785 1988 60,736 68,357 1989 101,679 102,795 1990 73,637 48,342 1991 56,310 16,552 1992 103,964 21,996 1993 144,166 34,228 1994 147,605 54,196

Source: INS Asylum Division