INS Urged to Extend Deadline for Amnesty Applications

A coalition of labor and legal aid groups urged the federal Immigration and Naturalization Service Tuesday to extend by a month a 30-day deadline for amnesty applications that ends at midnight today for illegal aliens who have been under deportation proceedings since last November.

But a high-ranking INS official, saying that most immigrants covered by the 30-day deadline will have applied for amnesty before the day is out, said the agency will not extend it.

“We don’t feel it’s necessary,” said INS Regional Commissioner Harold Ezell. “We think that most of those who would need to apply will have done so.”

Attorneys representing the AFL-CIO, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and other immigrant aid groups criticized the agency’s handling of the 30-day deadline, claiming that a month’s extension was imperative to allow immigrants to apply for amnesty who otherwise would lose all rights under the new law.

“Many of the immigrants who had to file have either not been adequately told about the deadline or have not been able to collect all the documents they need to file,” said Linda J. Wong of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund.

Under the deadline, illegal aliens who were arrested by INS agents or received INS summonses between Nov. 6, 1986, (the date federal immigration legislation became law) and May 5 (the start of the amnesty application period) had to apply for amnesty by midnight.

Ezell said that since last Nov. 6, there were 1,509 arrests in the agency’s Western Region, which includes California and several other states. Ezell said that the INS has received about 250 amnesty applications under the 30-day rule. Immigration processing agencies have identified another 400 to 500 cases. The remaining 750 cases, Ezell said, are migrant farm workers, who have another month to apply under special INS agriculture work provisions.

Immigrant aid groups challenged Ezell’s numbers, insisting that any illegal aliens who miss the midnight deadline will be forced to leave the United States or remain here illegally.

“The majority of these cases have a lot more complexity than what anyone first thought,” said Stewart Kwoh, director of the Asian-Pacific Center of Southern California. “We need more clarification and more time.”