INS Meets the Rush for Residency

Jany and Sandra Escudero had heard the horror stories about this date.

Monday’s deadline for illegal immigrants to seek residency in the United States was supposed to bring crowds and headaches. But when the Escuderos sought help with paperwork at El Concilio Del Condado de Ventura in Oxnard, the waiting room was full--but certainly not overflowing.

The day’s next trip, however, to the Immigration and Naturalization Service office in downtown Los Angeles to drop off the paperwork scared them.

“We saved everything for the last minute,” said Sandra, whose husband, Jany, hopes to become an American citizen.

“I think everybody must be there [in L.A.] already.”

But even in Los Angeles, the experience was mostly painless.

The INS, often criticized by immigrants and their advocates over lengthy waits for virtually all services, found a way to make the process almost wait-free.

At the same time, some government offices that had braced for people seeking last-minute birth records or marriage ceremonies found the day relatively smooth going.

At the regional INS office--the nation’s largest and busiest--the doors opened at 6 a.m., two hours earlier than usual. Already, the line was snaking around the corner. Within two hours, it had swelled to 2,000 people.

INS officials had summoned extra staff, but it clearly wasn’t going to be enough, said Thomas J. Schiltgen, the INS district director. The Los Angeles INS office serves residents of seven counties, from San Luis Obispo to Orange.

Schiltgen and his aides hurriedly decided to put a drop-off box outside, so that people trying to beat the deadline wouldn’t have to stand in line with hundreds of others transacting non-deadline business with the INS.

Two employees stationed themselves at the drop box and briskly took completed forms from outstretched hands.

“Everything’s in there? OK, you’re good to go,” INS staffer Dennis Culhane Jr. said over and over as he gathered envelopes with petitions and supporting documents.

“This is great. I’m very surprised,” said Ramona Zuniga of La Puente, who was filing the residency petition on behalf of her daughter-in-law.

“I saw a warning about this in the news and thought, ‘I’m gonna have to wait for hours.’ This took five minutes!”

After five hours, the office had taken in 3,000 petitions.

The line swelled again at 3:30 p.m., as people got off work.

Monday was the final day in a four-month window approved by Congress for illegal immigrants to apply for legal residency. Applicants were required to file a petition showing they would be financially sponsored by a relative or employer if they continue to live in the United States.

The petition is a first step toward applying for legal residency.

“They can have a sponsoring family member apply for them to become a lawful resident and eventually a citizen,” said Sharon Gavin, INS spokeswoman. “This is not accidental. It was done to keep families together.”

One byproduct of the deadline has been a rush on the part of immigrants with partners who are citizens to marry before the deadline--making the immigrant eligible for permanent residency.

For several months, marriage license applications have been surging around the country in cities with large immigrant populations.

At the Van Nuys office of the Los Angeles County Birth, Death and Marriage Records Department, supervisor Luis Basualdo said applications were running about three times the normal rate of 35 a day.

In Orange County, civil servants said they processed a record number of marriage licenses in April.

An expected rush of last-minute marriages did not materialize. There were a few, however. Natalia Vasquez of Baldwin Park was among the last people to get a license from the Orange County clerk-recorder before the deadline.

Vasquez, a U.S. citizen, married her boyfriend, Jose Colis, a Mexican citizen and the father of her 7-week-old son.

“I never thought I’d get married in jeans but that’s OK, I’m still happy,” the newly named Natalia Cruz said.

From the marriage bureau, the next stop would be the INS office, where not everyone had heard about the expedited service.

Enriqueta Diaz of Downey said she arrived at 5 a.m. and stood in line for six hours before hearing of the drop box. After handing her forms to an INS employee, she smiled wearily and said she wasn’t upset because “everybody had to be in line.”

For each of the petition filers, the real wait lies ahead. Legal-residency applications can take months or years to wend their way through the INS.

Monday’s deadline was a cut-off point for filing a “skeletal” INS form that officials said was simple enough to fill out in just a few minutes.

No actual documents such as birth certificates or visas were required.

The INS will review the petitions and ask for verifying paperwork.

To move the line along, the INS did not give receipts or other proof that the papers were filed by the deadline.

That upset Maria Esther Cabrera of Los Angeles, a U.S. citizen who filed the petition for her brother. She said she feared the INS might lose the paperwork.

“People will accuse us of that,” Gavin said. Forgoing a receipt was the trade-off for keeping the line moving, she said. “People would accuse us of losing things anyway, even if we did give receipts.”

At El Concilio, a nonprofit organization serving Latinos in Ventura County, employees were bracing for a last-minute onslaught, but it wasn’t the bedlam anyone expected.

“Last week, it was unbelievable,” said Hank Lacayo, the group’s president. “I was expecting a big line of people.”

Those who received help at El Concilio could mail their packages off before midnight or make the trek into Los Angeles to drop off the paperwork. The Oxnard INS office--which is limited mainly to fingerprinting--wasn’t open Sunday or Monday.

Jose Cruz, 19, was one of the last members of his family to emigrate from Mexico, about five years ago. There were several reasons he wanted to make sure he could become a citizen.

“This is a good country with lots of opportunity,” he said. “Plus, it will be easier to get a driver’s license.”

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Times staff writers Patricia Ward Biederman and Jason Song contributed to this story.