INS, Suspecting a Huge Fraud, to Review 1,000 Amnesty Bids

In one of the largest amnesty fraud cases yet discovered, U. S. authorities say, more than 1,000 applications tied to an Imperial Valley farm labor contractor are being pulled and reviewed for suspected fakery.

The U. S. Immigration and Naturalization Service in San Diego called it “potentially the most far-reaching farm-worker fraud case to date.”

Hundreds of applications linked to the Imperial Valley contractor--who is awaiting sentencing on an amnesty fraud conviction--have been filed throughout California and as far away as Texas, New York and Detroit, authorities said. Most applicants were citizens of Mexico or Central American nations, the INS said, but nationals of Pakistan and India were also involved in the scheme.

Fraudulent applicants seeking legal residence under the farm-worker amnesty program paid the contractor and his associates up to $3,500 for documents, which declared falsely that they had worked in the fields for sufficient time to qualify, said John Adkisson, an INS supervisory official in Calexico.

Transported Documents

A citizen of Pakistan participating in the scheme, Syed Mohammed Azam, 24, of Los Angeles, was sentenced Monday in San Diego to nine months in jail and ordered to pay a $10,000 fine, authorities said. He was a courier who transported fraudulent amnesty documents between the Imperial Valley and Los Angeles, Adkisson said.

Although officials say fraud is prevalent in the farm-worker amnesty program, Duke Austin, an INS spokesman in Washington, said he could recall only one other scheme that may have involved as many as 1,000 applicants. That ring operated out of New York state and was smashed last June, he said.

Nationwide, the INS spokesman said, almost one-third of the 1.3 million agricultural amnesty applications submitted are suspected of having been fraudulent. More than half of all farm-worker applicants work in California.

As of mid-April, Austin said, U. S. authorities had arrested 630 people for alleged agricultural amnesty fraud, resulting in 561 indictments and 250 convictions.

Less Stringent Guidelines

The farm-worker amnesty program, designed specifically to assist the agricultural industry, is distinct from the more heavily publicized general amnesty initiative, which resulted in almost 1.8 million applications. The guidelines for qualifying as a field worker were considerably less stringent, a fact that authorities say contributed to the high suspected rate of fraud.

Under general amnesty guidelines, applicants could only qualify for legal U. S. residence if they could demonstrate that they had been living in the United States illegally since 1982, a period of more than 5 years. Those applying under the farm-worker program were required to prove that they had performed a minimum of 90 days of agricultural labor during a one-year period, between May, 1985, and May, 1986.

“One burden pales in comparison to the other,” noted Austin, the INS spokesman.

However, farm-worker advocates argued that the burden of proof for agricultural workers was often too stringent, as many field hands were paid in cash and relatively few had maintained check stubs and other records. Critics say the INS has exaggerated the fraud problem, an assertion denied by the INS.

Guilty Plea

In the Imperial Valley case, the contractor, Carlos Duran Davila, 52, of El Centro has pleaded guilty to a single amnesty-fraud charge in U. S. District Court in San Diego and is scheduled to be sentenced July 24. He could face up to five years in jail and a $250,000 fine on the felony count, said John R. Kraemer, the assistant U. S. attorney in San Diego who prosecuted the case.

In court papers, authorities charge that Duran provided two undercover INS investigators posing as amnesty applicants with false affidavits indicating that they had worked for “various farms” for sufficient time to qualify for amnesty.

Awaiting trial in San Diego is an alleged associate of Duran, Carmen Emilia Galaz, 59, a Calexico notary public who is accused of helping Duran prepare the false declarations. Galaz has denied the charges.