House Again Extends Reprieve on Green Cards

Thousands of illegal immigrants with pending green-card applications received another temporary reprieve Wednesday, as the House extended by two weeks a provision that allows people to pay a $1,000 fine and obtain legal residency while remaining in the United States rather than requiring them to return to their home countries to do so.

The second extension of Section 245(i) of the immigration code came as part of a stopgap spending bill. That measure funds federal agencies through Nov. 7 to avoid a government shutdown while final details on a series of appropriations bills for the current fiscal year are being worked out.

While the extension gives illegal immigrants who have already been approved for a green card another opportunity to pick it up without leaving the country, a showdown on the immigration issue is expected to come next week.

The provision allowing illegal immigrants with pending green-card applications to remain here--originally scheduled to expire in September--is particularly controversial because of strict new rules that bar people from reentering the United States for 10 years if they lived here illegally for a year or more, and shut them out for three years if they were here illegally for six months.

Critics, led by Republican Reps. Dana Rohrabacher of Huntington Beach and Brian Bilbray of San Diego, call Section 245(i) “mordida amnesty”--akin to encouraging immigrants to bribe government officials to ignore the law. They also say it favors lawbreakers over people who play by the rules.

But backers point to the $100 million to $200 million in annual revenue the Immigration and Naturalization Service collects through 245(i), and argue that forcing people to return to their native lands--and remain there for three or 10 years--unfairly splits up families and robs businesses of key employees.

At dueling Capitol Hill news conferences this week, lawmakers on both sides of the issue showcased immigrants with heart-wrenching stories: In favor of 245(i) was Ann Sloley, a Jamaican woman who was abused by her ex-husband, a U.S. citizen, and wants to get her visa while here to avoid being separated from her elementary school-age son. On the other side was Charles Mensah, a health-care technician from Ghana whose wife and four children remain in Africa and face a four-year wait to immigrate legally.

“I hope that this great nation will not impose more hardships on me or my son,” Sloley said, standing next to Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), who backs a permanent extension of 245(i). “I hope this great nation . . . will not punish those people who are the closest to becoming legal residents.”

But Mensah, flanked by Bilbray, Rohrabacher and Reps. Ron Packard (R-Oceanside) and Nathan Deal (R-Ga.), offered his own tale of woe. “I miss my family very much and wait for the day that we will be reunited,” said the resident of Alexandria, Va., a Washington suburb. “I don’t understand why people who break U.S. laws get to be with their families and I don’t.”

On another immigration-related issue, the House earlier this week voted unanimously to exempt internationally adopted children from a provision included in last year’s immigration law that requires all individuals seeking permanent entry into the United States to prove that they have been inoculated against all diseases that can be prevented by vaccines.

Health experts and adoption advocacy organizations had been lobbying lawmakers to exclude these children from the rule, arguing that obtaining the vaccinations abroad could put children at risk and transmit dangerous diseases because of widespread use of unsterile needles in other countries.

Rep. Bill McCollum (R-Fla.), the House sponsor of the vaccine requirement, also sponsored the exemption after learning of the provision’s potential problems.

Times staff writer Marlene Cimons contributed to this story.