Democrats Urge Easing of 2 Immigration Rules

With key votes upcoming in Congress, Democratic representatives and activist groups gathered in downtown Los Angeles Friday and called on Republican lawmakers to approve two controversial proposals that supporters say will avert the separation of hundreds of thousands of immigrant families.

“Deporting people who have long-standing ties, citizen children, spouses and other family members . . . simply does not make sense,” said Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Los Angeles), chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

Joining him on the steps of the Federal Building were Reps. Esteban Torres (D-Pico Rivera) and Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Los Angeles. The pending proposals, said Roybal-Allard, were “pro-family and pro-business.”

The event was explicitly designed to put pressure on Republicans in Congress to vote for two controversial measures: a pending relief bill for about 300,000 Central Americans who face deportation under last year’s tough new immigration law, and a proposal to renew Section 245(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows illegal immigrants with approved green-card petitions to pay a $1,000 fine and finish their paperwork here rather than in their homelands.

Congress is expected to reexamine the future of Section 245(i) before Oct. 23, when that provision is now scheduled to expire. The Central American relief bill may come up in the Senate next week.

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The Democratic leadership and the Clinton administration support both measures. But there is fierce opposition among Republicans from southern California and elsewhere who say both plans reward lawbreakers.

Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Ventura) said Friday that allowing undocumented green-card applicants to finish their applications here “is a slap in the face to everyone who has abided by the law.” Gallegly, a member of the House immigration subcommittee, said Central Americans allowed to find temporary “safe haven” in the United States during the 1980s should now go home, since the warfare in their homelands has ended.

“If they want to come into this country,” Gallegly said, “let them get in line like everyone else.”