Mixed Emotions Amid Rush : Amnesty Program Ends in a Flurry

By the tens of thousands, immigrants abandoned their lives in the underground, scrambling to register Wednesday at federal offices in Southern California and across the nation in the final hours of the government’s unprecedented and fiercely debated amnesty program.

The sweeping one-year program holds out the promise of legal residency to as many as 1.5 million undocumented immigrants who federal officials anticipated would apply by the midnight deadline. Hundreds of thousands of ineligible aliens--and thousands of others who were eligible, but failed to apply--face an uncertain future clouded by harsh employment restrictions.

The last long day of amnesty ended in a flurry of mixed emotions for the applicants and the thousands of federal workers and volunteers who helped process their files. For immigrants, the final day meant a frantic race to secure money orders for application fees, interpret unfamiliar English-language questions and struggle through lines that grew as the deadline approached. Some were exhilarated after handing in their applications; others were wracked with doubt.

Filling Out Forms

Standing in line in Miami, Mia Mendoza, an immigrant from Colombia, fretted over whether to show up at all. “I still believe that the government will deport more than half of all of us,” she said. “I know people who were on the phone as late as last night begging landlords and former employers for letters that would help them, and they were still being refused. . . . Finally, I told my husband, ‘Let’s apply. If they turn us down, we’ll just go back. That’s all.’ ”

In Chicago, Augustus Akafo, a Ghanaian who holds a degree in computer science and began driving a cab after he was fired from another job because he was in the country illegally, was ecstatic. “After today, it will be easier to get a good job. Now I can go back to Ghana to visit my mother who is sick,” he said, adding: “I’m so happy, I feel like I belong here.”

At the government’s East Los Angeles office, Fernando De Dios, 21, whose ease with English and Spanish helps him to pass as a citizen, coached others on how to fill out their forms. “I hadn’t put much stock in amnesty,” he said. “If it hadn’t been for my mother pushing me, I wouldn’t be here.”

At 97 legalization offices throughout the nation, Immigration and Naturalization Service officials celebrated the day with mariachi music, balloons, free food and small models of the Statue of Liberty.

Lines grew so long outside one Chicago office that officials brought in extra staff to handle the volume, and in Los Angeles enterprising vendors sold envelopes for $2. But in Houston and San Francisco, officials said they had dealt with larger crowds over the weekend. “Everything’s rocking along pretty good,” said Robert L. Coffman, INS legalization director in San Diego.

Alan C. Nelson, INS commissioner, called the yearlong program “tremendously successful.” As of Tuesday, 1,374,357 immigrants had applied for amnesty. In the agency’s seven-county Los Angeles district, 894,000 applications had been received by 10 p.m. Wednesday, including 265,000 from farm workers registering under a separate program. With the 72,000 applications filed by 10 p.m., officials said, they had already broken the record daily high of 70,000 in the Western Region.

Final figures will not be available until officials open piles of mailed-in applications. More than 55% of the applicants have already received temporary residency cards, and officials predict that 98% of all applications will be accepted.

Last and Final Day

Up to the final minutes, officials warned aliens that there would be no tomorrow, even using a Goodyear blimp in Houston to flash a bilingual message. The immigration agency is already turning its attention to enforcement of sanctions against firms that hire undocumented aliens and the second phase of amnesty, which includes education requirements for those seeking permanent residence.

But the amnesty process may continue beyond the deadline for some immigrants. Federal judges in Washington and New York Wednesday extended the amnesty period for thousands, and some lawyers predicted these decisions could be a portent of a summer of court-enforced amnesty extensions. The decision in Washington extended the deadline to Aug. 31 for immigrants who failed to file because they were misled by government officials or private agencies.

“Even though the song has ended, the melody lingers on,” said Maurice A. Roberts, a former U.S. immigration appeals judge who publishes an immigration law newsletter.

When amnesty started last May, INS officials predicted that up to 3.9 million immigrants would apply, then scaled their forecasts down to 2 million. The agency maintains that the 1.5 million applicants include most of the nation’s eligible immigrants, but critics suggest that hundreds of thousands of eligible applicants have been left behind.

Long Topic of Debate

Along with sanctions against employers, amnesty was at the heart of a sweeping immigration reform law that inched through a decade of debate and failed several times in Congress before it was enacted in November, 1986. Supporters said the law was essential to control illegal immigration, which brought an alien population estimated at 2 million to 8 million into the United States in the 1970s and early 1980s.

For the past year, the program and its roller-coaster rate of applications have been monitored closely by scholars curious about its progress, immigrant rights advocates worried about its impact and federal officials looking for evidence that they were on the right track.

But the only consensus reached among observers of the amnesty process is that the agency’s network of legalization centers worked with considerable efficiency for most of the year.

“Its been surprising that the INS was able to do such a superb job in getting those offices open and really projecting a welcoming attitude to the (immigrant) population,” said William Diaz, a government policy specialist with the Ford Foundation in New York.

The offices got off to a shaky start, with shortages and difficulty setting up interviews and mastering a new computer system. “We looked like ghost towns on May 5,” recalled INS Assistant Commissioner Richard E. Norton, who drew up the blueprints for the amnesty program.

By midyear, most offices appeared to be running smoothly, casting INS officials as public servants instead of policemen. “Hopefully, this boost to (the INS) image will be a lasting one,” said Doris Meissner, a former acting INS commissioner and analyst for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

But two major independent studies of the program’s effectiveness--one by the Carnegie Endowment and the other funded by the Ford Foundation--concluded that a minimum of 500,000 and perhaps as many as 1 million immigrants who were eligible for amnesty failed to apply.

“If you make the judgment that a whole lot of eligible aliens remain in the shadows, you have to assume that amnesty is not meeting its purpose,” said Rick Swartz, president of a national coalition of immigrant rights groups. Procedural snags first emerged among the hundreds of amnesty counseling centers set up by churches, community agencies and labor groups to help immigrants prepare their applications.

Computer failures, limited resources and delays and confusion in amnesty regulations led to a low turnout at many of these counseling centers. In Los Angeles, the Catholic Church, which registered 300,000 amnesty-seeking immigrants, ended up processing a tenth of that number.

As the weeks wore on, the program also took on a lopsided regional character, with the Western and Southern states handling a disproportionately high rate of applications. The INS Western region accounted for as much as 60% of the nation’s totals, while Northeastern states brought in less than a third of the 300,000 applications originally predicted.

‘More Diverse’ in Northeast

“In the Northeast, the (immigrant) population is more diverse,” said the INS’ Norton. “It was harder to get the message out.”

Immigrant advocates said larger numbers of aliens might have been reached if there had been a more effective public education campaign. Instead, the INS campaign, relying on private advertising firms, was slow to start up and made little effort to promote the role of community service agencies.

Only in the final months did the INS take public relations into its own hands, mounting a circus-style media blitz complete with singing, sombrero-bedecked immigration officials, parade elephants and tortilla packages stuffed with amnesty reminders.

On Wednesday, INS Western Regional Commissioner Harold Ezell donned a bright blue sombrero for the final Los Angeles appearance of El Trio Amnistia. After a rousing chorus of the Mexican ranchera standard, “Volver, Volver” (“Return, Return”), Ezell was recognized by Antonio Pichardo.

The immigrant discussed his mother’s case with the commissioner, thanked him for his help and then said in Spanish: “But you know what? You don’t look good in a sombrero.” Ezell shrugged.

Throughout the year, INS officials and community groups bickered over the agency’s refusal to yield on key regulations. Some observers questioned whether Congress’ original intent to promote amnesty by a joint effort of the INS and community groups was ever achieved.

“The partnership . . . never really matured and developed in the way Congress envisioned,” Meissner said.

Senate Defeats Extension

And immigrant advocates were ineffective in persuading Congress to extend the program or modify it to guarantee immigrant families that they would not be separated. A last-minute fight to extend the program beyond Wednesday’s deadline narrowly passed the House of Representatives but was blocked in the Senate.

As the INS turns its attention to employer sanctions and the formidable law enforcement effort that will have to accompany that part of the law, some experts expect that the program may already be seriously flawed.

“We have a strong feeling that employers are following the letter but not the spirit of the law,” said Anna Garcia, a research associate with the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at UC San Diego.

INS officials plan to use some of the lessons learned during the last year in future operations. At least 40 legalization offices will be kept open over the next three years for the next ph1634952480which applicants will have to demonstrate ability in English and civics.

“This is the vanguard of the new system,” said Norton of the INS. “We’ve learned not only how comfortable aliens feel, but how happy our employees can be (in the neighborhood legalization offices) as opposed to working in the older district offices.”

As applicants flocked to the INS Wilshire Boulevard office Wednesday, eager to be accepted, there were some whose loyalties to their new home were tempered by heart-tugging ties to the lands of their birth.

Marta Calderon, 57, an immigrant from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, broke into tears as she prepared to hand in her hastily prepared application. She realized that she was no longer quite Mexican, but not yet American.

“Once I turn in this application,” she said, dabbing her eyes, “I’ll never be a true Mexican again.”

Contributing to this report were Times staff writers Mary Barber, Edward J. Boyer, James M. Gomez, Hugo Martin, Carol McGraw, Claudia Puig, George Ramos, Carla Rivera and Bob Schwartz in Southern California; Lee May in Washington and Times researchers Norma Kaufman in San Francisco, Ruth Lopez in Chicago, Lorna Nones in Miami and Rhona Schwartz in Houston.