Go to Immigrants, Part 2

Confusion Over Law Roils Immigrant Communities

With the effective date of a new immigration law fast approaching, confusion and rumors about some of its tougher provisions are roiling immigrant communities around the country, prompting thousands of people to throng federal offices, arrange hasty marriages and besiege law offices and legal aid clinics.

Anxious immigrants have been camping out overnight in front of Immigration and Naturalization Service offices in New York and Dallas to beat what they believe -- mistakenly, officials say -- is an April 1 deadline to file applications that will allow them or their relatives to stave off deportation.

The INS seems at a loss to explain why the panics have been concentrated in these two cities. There have been no unusual crowds at INS offices in the Washington area, but in recent weeks hundreds of concerned people have been calling and lining up for advice at the area's legal aid clinics and immigrant centers.

The confusion surrounds a landmark immigration law passed by Congress last year. While key provisions take effect on April 1, INS officials say the date is not a deadline for filing any application, as many immigrant communities seem to believe.

Filing an application to obtain a "green card" denoting legal immigrant status or getting married in an attempt to qualify for that status before April 1 "provides NO advantage to the applicant under the changes in the immigration law," the INS said in a statement yesterday. It said the effective deadline to "adjust" immigration status is Sept. 30, unless Congress passes an extension.

Moreover, marrying a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident does not guarantee that an illegal alien can gain legal status, INS officials said.

After a doubling of the usual crowds outside the INS office in lower Manhattan in recent days, the panic seemed to subside yesterday. The office typically sees about 1,500 people a day, INS officials said.

In the Washington area, "they're not lined up around the block, but everyone is freaking out," said Clair Chekasky, a lawyer with Hogar Hispano, a legal aid clinic in Arlington. "They think they have to get everything in by April 1 or else, and I can't honestly tell them they don't. The INS is confused, the judges are confused, we're trying our best, and all the immigrants are scared."

Yvonne Vega, director of the Ayuda legal aid clinic in Adams-Morgan, said that hundreds of people, from undocumented Central Americans to East European asylum seekers, had called or shown up for walk-in advice about the new law in the last several weeks.

"There is tremendous confusion," she said. "We try to explain exactly what the law says, but people have heard so many versions, they choose to believe the one that will help them."

On one recent day, there were 36 people waiting to see Ayuda lawyers before the doors opened at 9 a.m. Many were Central Americans who had no legal papers and feared they would be deported after April 1. Others, from Africa and other parts of the world, asked whether quickly applying for political asylum would help.

"Are they going to deport everybody?" asked Jose Hernandez, 48, a leathery Salvadoran man in a dirty uniform. He said he sneaked across the Mexican border in 1986 but never applied for political asylum or a work permit. "I can tell you who was the president back then if it would help," he volunteered.

Upstairs, a younger Latino man named David in paint-spattered pants confided to a lawyer that he had no papers either. Sheepishly, he asked her if getting married before April 1 to a Venezuelan-American woman he barely knew would protect him from the new law.

"Don't tell me about that," the lawyer winced, covering her ears. "You're not supposed to marry someone just to get your papers. I can't give you advice about it. Go away and good luck." His shoulders sagging, the man thanked her and trudged back out into the street.

Much of the confusion stems from a provision in the new law aimed at penalizing people who overstay their visas. If they remain in the United States illegally for six months after April 1, they will be barred for three years from obtaining a new visa at a U.S. consular office abroad. If they stay illegally for a year, they will be barred for 10 years. This means that people trying to become legal permanent residents will have to leave the country by the end of September -- unless Congress extends a current provision that allows them to adjust their status in the United States by paying a $1,000 fine.

Other provisions that take effect April 1 include expedited procedures to expel foreigners who arrive with invalid documents and restrictions aimed at denying admission to those who falsely claim political asylum.

In practice, however, the INS does not foresee any massive immediate increase in deportations among the country's estimated 5 million illegal immigrants, as many of them now seem to fear.

"Our enforcement priorities are on the removal of criminal aliens," said Paul Virtue, the acting INS executive associate commissioner for programs.