INS Plans New Offices to Handle Aliens Seeking Amnesty

Preparing for the thousands of illegal aliens in Orange County who are expected to seek amnesty, federal immigration authorities will open two new local offices next spring, and Santa Ana police are considering giving the aliens a course in American civics, officials said Thursday.

The proposed course would be unusual even for the Santa Ana Police Department, known for keeping its distance from tough federal immigration enforcement policies. It would be aimed at helping illegal aliens who have qualified for amnesty meet later requirements for permanent residency status, department spokesman Jose Vargas said.

The program is still in the planning stages, Vargas said, and has not received final approval within the department or from city officials. City Manager David N. Ream said Thursday that he had not yet heard of the proposed course.

The new offices of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service will probably be located in Anaheim and Santa Ana, said Donna Coultice, INS western regional deputy director for legalization. The agency plans to open 13 other processing centers in the Los Angeles area, she said.

Vargas and Coultice revealed their respective agencies’ plans Thursday at a forum sponsored by the Orange County Human Relations Commission on the new federal immigration law. About 60 people, including employers, immigration attorneys and representatives of nonprofit groups, attended the forum.

The landmark bill, which was signed last month by President Reagan, would grant legal resident status to illegal aliens who have lived in the United States continuously since Jan. 1, 1982, or who have worked at least 90 days in agriculture between May 1, 1985, and May 1, 1986.

An estimated 100,000 illegal aliens live in Orange County, and another 100,000 may spend part of the year in the county, according to immigration experts. How many are eligible or will apply for amnesty is still anybody’s guess.

Jose Bracamonte, a UCLA law professor who spoke Thursday at the forum, said that nationwide, “not more than 500,000” illegal aliens will receive temporary resident status under the new law.

The INS will begin accepting applications for amnesty in early May next year. Before then, immigration authorities will designate a number of volunteer agencies as official centers that will be reimbursed by the government for processing amnesty applications.

Although no agencies have yet been designated, the Catholic Diocese of Orange has begun registering likely amnesty applicants and training volunteers at Catholic churches around the county in anticipation of the crunch next spring. Coultice said that illegal aliens may apply for amnesty either through one of the volunteer agencies or directly at one of the new INS centers.

“We don’t really know how to gear up for this,” Coultice said. “We don’t know if they will be lined up at the doors . . . or if no one will show up at all because they don’t trust us.”

Coultice stressed that if an illegal alien is denied amnesty, he or she will not be summarily deported by the INS. In fact, she said, the law forbids the INS from using information contained in the applications for any purpose other than determining eligibility for amnesty, or to prosecute cases of egregious fraud.

“There will be no enforcement at the (processing) site,” Coultice said. “The applicant will walk away.”

Bracamonte, a specialist in immigration, said sanctions against employers who hire illegal aliens--the other major provision of the new law--would be “very difficult to enforce” because “specific intent” to “knowingly” hire an illegal alien must be proved.

“That is a very, very difficult standard for the prosecution to meet,” Bracamonte said.

European countries have had employer sanctions on their books for 20 years, and in the 11 states and few cities in this country that provide for such sanctions, there have been only three convictions in the last 15 years, Bracamonte said. The INS, he said, “is counting on voluntary compliance.”

One question asked repeatedly at Thursday’s forum was how much English and knowledge of American civics must amnesty applicants have and how that would be verified.

Coultice said no knowledge of English is required for temporary resident status, but some basic understanding of English and knowledge of U.S. history and government would be required for permanent resident status. (Aliens granted temporary resident status must apply for permanent residency within 2 1/2 years or forfeit their legal status.) That requirement, she said, could be satisfied by pursuing a course to obtain those skills.