Another Chance at Amnesty

Francisca Escobar said she’s dealt too long with the INS to have much hope about getting her legal status--a fruitless 13-year pursuit, so far, through the federal immigration bureaucracy.

Nonetheless, the 55-year-old Los Angeles seamstress said she felt her heart leap earlier this month when she heard about the Clinton administration’s proposal to help win legal residency for her and roughly 500,000 other immigrants caught in a stalemate.

Trumpeted as a solution to a problem that kept hundreds of thousands of people from participating in the federal amnesty program of the late 1980s, the White House proposal aims to change immigration rules so that legal residency can be granted to immigrants who have lived continuously in the United States since 1986.

Escobar said she worries that the proposal is only the latest twist in what immigration lawyers describe as an Alice-in-Wonderland saga. “It’s always just words,” said Escobar, who, fearing deportation, asked that her real last name be changed for this story.

Her predicament stems from the way the Immigration and Naturalization Service handled the 1986 amnesty program, which granted legal residency to immigrants of good moral standing who had lived in the United States continuously since 1982.

The program was meant as a pardon for millions of people not eligible for legal residency under current immigration law, which allows anyone who has lived here since 1972 to apply.

Roughly 3 million immigrants benefited from the 1986 program. But many others--including Escobar--fell victim to a provision that disqualified anyone who had lived abroad between 1982 and 1988, when the program ended.

INS workers turned away applicants who admitted having spent short stints outside of the United States--whether for vacation or business or to visit ailing loved ones.

“We went for only a month in 1987, back to Guatemala, to see my husband,” said Escobar, who escaped her country’s civil war in 1981 with her four children. “My husband was sick. He was having heart problems. We had to go back.”

Escobar hasn’t returned to Guatemala since, raising her children alone and working as a seamstress at home.

Others who had been abroad did not bother filling out applications after being told by INS clerks or friends that they would be rejected.

By the time they learned they had been misled, the deadline for applications had passed. Some turned in applications anyway.

Suit Disputes INS Interpretation

A legal dispute over the travel-abroad provision is at the core of two class-action federal lawsuits filed on behalf of about 350,000 immigrants, most of them living in California.

Peter Schey, the lead attorney in the suits, argues that INS officials misinterpreted the amnesty guidelines. He points to language in the law that states “brief, casual and innocent” travel was permitted.

He and other advocates estimate that there are another 150,000 immigrants in the country who are not part of the litigation but were also affected. Federal authorities have argued that the number of people discouraged from applying for amnesty was far smaller.

In 1993, the U.S. Supreme Court partially agreed with Schey, ordering the INS to process applications from people who filled out amnesty applications but then were turned away.

Only 85 Applications Under Review

But it has been slow going, despite the court order. As of September, only 85 applicants had reached the review stage, INS spokesman Bill Strassberger said.

“It’s a process that has begun and is ongoing,” he said. “We don’t want to deny something to someone who deserves it. At the same time, we don’t want to just give permanent residency to people who, for whatever reason, chose not to file” for amnesty.

In 1996, Congress passed a law precluding late applicants from pursuing further legal recourse.

Also, at the request of the U.S. Justice Department, a panel of three federal appeals judges last July tossed out Catholic Social Services vs. INS--the larger of Schey’s two lawsuits, representing 250,000 applicants.

Schey appealed, citing the Supreme Court ruling, and in December won a decision to have the matter reconsidered by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court in San Francisco. Although Schey said he is hopeful, a ruling against him “could leave us pretty much dead in the water.”

The government’s handling of the situation, Schey said, “has been so completely inane and stupid, it is just unfathomable.”

Robert Bombaugh, a U.S. Department of Justice attorney overseeing the class-action suits, would not comment.

While awaiting a resolution, many amnesty applicants have tried to lead normal lives. They work, pay taxes and operate businesses. Their U.S.-born children attend public schools and colleges.

“I have established a successful business here,” said Israel Klein, who emigrated from Israel 20 years ago and now lives in Encino. “Three of my four kids are citizens, yet I feel like a second-degree person.”

Others try to keep a low profile, said Minako Suzuki, a paralegal at the Asian Pacific American Legal Center. “It has affected them psychologically,” she said. “They don’t want to think about their situations because it makes them miserable.”

Shortly after the Catholic Social Services suit was filed 13 years ago, Schey won work permits for 50,000 clients. But a federal court two years ago barred renewal of the permits.

Now, many of those who try to advance themselves face obstacles because of their illegal status.

Catalina Herrera, 21, blossomed into an athlete and a scholar at Blair High School in Pasadena after arriving from Mexico when she was 2. Herrera’s track coaches assured her that college and a bright future awaited her.

But the family was denied amnesty because of a brief 1987 trip to Puebla, Mexico, that her mother took just before filing her application.

Years later, when Herrera learned she had to be a U.S. citizen to qualify for financial aid, she said, “I went home, tore up the scholarship application and cried.”

Herrera now works as an attendant for mentally retarded adults, earning $6.50 an hour that helps support her five younger brothers.

“In my heart I feel like I’m a citizen,” she said. “But I know I can be picked up any day by the INS. It makes me so scared.”

Legislation Could Reduce Need for Class-Action Suits

Immigrant advocates believe such hardships can be erased under the White House proposal. Co-sponsored in Congress by Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nevada) and Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas), the legislation seeks to change the law so that illegal immigrants who have been here since 1986 can apply for legal residency.

Doing so would reduce or eliminate the need for the class action suits, said Vice President Al Gore when announcing the proposal earlier this month.

Kevin Appleby of the United States Catholic Conference agreed.

“It’s a matter of justice,” he said. “Those who would be benefited by this have worked hard, contributed to their communities and deserve an opportunity to stay here.”

However, many are not optimistic, despite a healthy U.S. economy and low unemployment. “It may not happen,” said Angela Kelley, deputy director of the National Immigration Forum.

The Federation for American Immigration Reform strongly opposes the proposal.

“Congress said in 1986 they’d give a one-time amnesty for 3 million people in exchange for meaningful deterrence of illegal immigration,” said spokesman Dan Stein. “Fifteen years later, nothing has been done.”

Indeed, political support has so far been tepid. In a presidential election year, congressional Republicans who have historically been against pro-immigrant legislation are not likely to change their minds, Kelley said.

Schey said it would be better for his clients if the government settled the lawsuits. That would avoid their having to wade through the extra red tape created by a new law. Under the current White House proposal, all eligible immigrants would have to reapply.

With the INS already flooded with paperwork from millions seeking legal residency, Schey said, creating a new program “is just the height of folly.”

Yet it could be the only hope for many amnesty applicants.

Speaking through a Japanese interpreter, a 50-year-old man who did not want his name used said he realizes that gaining legal status is still a longshot.

After losing his work permit two years ago, the former Little Tokyo tour guide now scrapes by on savings. He is stoic about the American dream he sought when he arriving here in 1979 from Japan.

“I leave it up to fate,” he said.