Longtime Illegal Immigrants Hope Amnesty Will Dispel Fear

Ever Guzman runs a successful real-estate business in the San Fernando Valley.

Anil Urmil works as a film editor in Hollywood.

Maria Elena Meza is a single mother trying to rear two teenagers on her pay as an office worker.

All three have made their lives and careers in Southern California since arriving in the U.S. as youngsters almost two decades ago.

Yet all three live with the threat of deportation as illegal immigrants.

They are among hundreds of thousands of well-established U.S. residents who failed to qualify for legal residency under landmark amnesty legislation of the 1980s. They will be watching closely next month when Congress is expected to debate a new amnesty.

Passage--sought by immigrant advocates for more than a decade--would be recognition that illegal immigrants with deep roots in this country deserve to stay.

“Finally, we can emerge from our underground lives, from our employment in violation of federal law, from our constant fear of arrest and deportation,” said Urmil, 37, an Indian-born activist who has been part of the grass-roots amnesty campaign.

Federal officials say passage could result in as many as 500,000 longtime residents eventually winning much-coveted “green cards,” which allow holders to live and work permanently in the U.S.--and, after a few years, apply for citizenship. Southern California may account for as many as one-third of prospective applicants.

To politicians and others eager to curb immigration, a new amnesty would be an anathema that would encourage new illegal entries.

“Amnesties are like giving a bank robber the money he stole as a reward,” said Dan Stein, executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

Guzman, Urmil and Meza say the INS barred them from applying for the 1986 amnesty, in which more than 2.6 million illegal immigrants received green cards. Because of absences from the U.S., they could not prove they had lived here “continuously” since 1982.

A Democratic plan on Capitol Hill would lower that standard by four years, requiring that applicants prove they have lived in the U.S. since 1986. A Republican version would simply accept the late-amnesty applications as valid.

Congress deadlocked on immigration reform, including a new amnesty, before adjourning in October. Prospects for a resolution in the coming lame-duck session are unclear, especially in the uncertain atmosphere following the bitterly contested presidential election.

However, the continuing emergence of Latino and Asian American voters has helped shift the debate. It was only four years ago that anti-immigrant sentiment ran high and Congress passed some of the most restrictive immigration legislation in years.

The likely beneficiaries of a new amnesty defy the stereotype of illegal immigrants as recent border-crossers and day laborers. Many are professionals--doctors, accountants, real estate brokers and artists, according to their advocates--though many have lost jobs or been denied opportunities and services because of their status.

Some hold temporary working permits won through court victories. But all lack the ultimate security of knowing they could remain in their adopted homeland.

Many have spent their entire adult lives here.

“What is there for me in Guatemala?” asked Ever Guzman, 32, one of the multitudes of Central Americans who arrived as illegal immigrants via Mexico during the 1980s and headed for L.A. “I can’t go back there. What would my children do? This is my country now.”

The curly haired, quick-paced Guzman sports a pager and a cell phone and looks every bit the part of a hustling real estate salesman.

He has come a long way since crossing the Rio Grande with a coyote (smuggler) as a virtually penniless 12-year-old in 1981. He now owns a home in affluent Thousand Oaks, where he lives with his wife and two U.S.-born children, ages 10 and 7.

“My neighbors would probably be surprised if they knew about me,” Guzman said during a meeting in Los Angeles of a support group of amnesty hopefuls. “I feel a part of this country. My family is here. I love Guatemala, but this is where I make my life.”

Like most of the nation’s estimated 6 million illegal immigrants, amnesty aspirants are largely ineligible for government services, scholarships and many other programs.

They may face difficulties in setting up bank accounts, buying homes and obtaining driver’s licenses and professional licenses. Many have been unable to leave the United States for years, even to visit loved ones in their homelands: They feared they would not be able to come back to the U.S.

“I really noticed it every Christmas, when I wanted to go see my grandmother and I couldn’t leave,” said Andrea Carrillo, 25, a Spanish national who arrived here at age 6 with her family. “That’s when I really felt it.”

The same 1986 law that created the first amnesty also made it unlawful for employers to hire illegal immigrants, shoving the undocumented population further into the underground economy.

“As an ilegal, it’s difficult to push for more salary or better conditions,” said Javier Terrazas, a 39-year-old electrician from Mexico who lives in Los Angeles.

Most amnesty seekers contend that they were wrongly discouraged from applying for the 1986 program because of short-term absences from the United States.

In Guzman’s case, he said he went to the Immigration and Naturalization Service office in Los Angeles with a completed application and was told he was not eligible because he had left the country for several weeks to visit relatives. “I was destroyed,” he said.

Class-action suits filed in the late 1980s against such INS actions have been fought in federal court ever since without a resolution. The INS defended the denials by saying it suspected fraudulent claims by many late-amnesty applicants.

When Congress passed stricter immigration rules four years ago, it included language saying most late-amnesty claims could not be pursued in court. But last week, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the right of many late-amnesty applicants to continue their 12-year court battle for legal residence.

Congressional consideration of amnesty is part of a larger immigration reform package, including provisions easing the way for Central Americans and others to obtain green cards. The Democratic plan is seen as more liberal, covering 100,000 more immigrants than the Republican plan.