Go to Immigrants, Part 2

Revised Laws Leave Many Area Immigrants in Limbo

Ravi Narahari, a 32-year-old computer programmer from India who came to the United States in 1991, has acquired the trappings of middle-class American life: a rented home in Rockville, a car, a 401(k) retirement account and a life insurance policy.

Soon he could lose all of it. He is waiting for his green card, the document that would change his immigration status from temporary worker to permanent U.S. resident. But he may not get the card before the end of September, when two immigration law changes are due to take effect.

A new law and an expiring old one could force him and thousands of other people waiting to become legal U.S. residents to choose between leaving the country indefinitely or going underground.

Either choice would cost him dearly, said Narahari, who works for a medical service company in McLean. If he stays here illegally, he cannot continue working for the firm. If he leaves the United States, he said, "financially I'll have to restart my life."

The new law that has helped put Narahari and many others in a bind has become the focus of mounting concern in recent weeks in immigrant communities in Washington and elsewhere. Designed to prevent the common practice of visa overstays, it was a little-noticed provision in the immigration bill that Congress approved last year.

"There's an incredible amount of justified uncertainty in the immigrant community," said Michael Maggio, an immigration lawyer in the District. "People are just starting to go crazy, because they're just learning about this."

Those most affected are green-card applicants whose visas have lapsed or who entered the country illegally in the first place. Many have worked here for years in a wide variety of occupations, from nannies and maids to restaurant chefs and professionals.

Although there is no official estimate, Maggio and others say that thousands of Washington area residents -- and tens of thousands of people nationwide -- are in this legal limbo and are likely to feel the impact of the new law.

These immigrants usually would remain here in an illegal status until their green-card applications were approved. They then were required to leave the country to obtain immigrant visas at a U.S. diplomatic post abroad and reenter the United States legally to receive their green cards. Upon their return, they would face no repercussions for their previous illegal stays.

In 1994, Congress gave such applicants another option. If they paid the Immigration and Naturalization Service a fine, recently raised to $1,000, they could adjust their status from illegal to legal immigrant without having to leave the United States. That provision is due to expire Sept. 30.

Under the new law, if immigrants remain in the United States illegally for more than 180 days after April 1, they will have to wait three years before they can obtain a new U.S. visa abroad. If their illegal stay lasts more than a year, they will be banned from reentering this country for 10 years.

This makes the fine-paying provision crucial. If Congress extends it, green card applicants would be able to dodge the three- to 10-year bans by paying the fine, thereby avoiding the trip to a U.S. consulate abroad. But congressional sources say an extension looks unlikely.

The resulting double whammy is likely to force green-card applicants who are here illegally to go back to their home countries to wait months or years for their cards, immigration lawyers and U.S. officials say.

The INS has not yet issued its regulations for implementing the new rule, but immigration lawyers are advising their clients that exemptions or waivers are likely to be few and difficult to obtain.

Many foreign workers and their advocates argue that Congress essentially has moved the goal posts in the middle of the game, changing the rules for thousands of people who were following an established process to become legal U.S. residents.

"The people penalized by this law are going to be the people who are in the process of getting legal," Maggio said. "If you're looking to tighten up on immigration laws, why punish those who are almost legal? It's just going to drive people underground even more. Those who are illegal will have no motivation to get legal."

The new law also punishes the households and small businesses that employ foreign workers who are trying to adjust their status, critics say.

"What employer is going to wait three years or 10 years" for an employee to be allowed back into the United States? asked lawyer Luis Salgado, who is host of a local Spanish-language radio talk show on immigration issues. "Those relationships are lost, and any chance to return will be lost."

But supporters of tougher immigration restrictions say the penalties for visa overstays and illegal entry into the United States must be severe and consistent if they are to have a deterrent effect.

Dan Stein, executive director of the District-based Federation for American Immigration Reform, calls the new law "a revolutionary step forward" and says he has little sympathy for the argument that immigrants who are "almost legal" deserve special treatment. "We're finally beginning to get some teeth in the incentive to encourage immigration-law compliance," he said.

Rep. Lamar S. Smith (R-Tex.), chairman of the House Judiciary immigration subcommittee and a leading sponsor of last year's law, served notice to the INS at a subcommittee hearing last week that he expects strict enforcement of the new provision.

"The congressional mandate to end the revolving door for illegal aliens is specific and detailed," he said. "Given how clearly Congress has spoken, INS should carry out that mandate 100 percent."

Applications for green cards typically are sponsored by an immigrant's employer or relative. The wait can take years, even decades, because of annual limits on the number of cards the INS issues, which vary depending on the applicant's sponsorship and country of origin.

A District man who is sponsoring his Filipino nanny's four-year-old application said she came to him about a month ago in tears and told him she had just heard about the new law. Her visa has expired, and she believes she is still years away from receiving her green card. Like most of the employers and workers interviewed about the new law, the man spoke on the condition that his name not be used for fear of triggering INS action.

If the nanny is not granted an exemption from the new rule, she probably will continue to live illegally in the United States but will have to quit her current job to avoid detection by authorities, said her employer, who has two children in her care. "It would be devastating for the kids, who are so young and just love her," he said.

A nanny from Trinidad who came to the United States seven years ago and is working for a family in Hyattsville said she expects to wait several more years for the green card she applied for 19 months ago. She supports her 15-year-old daughter, who is still in Trinidad, and she had hoped to bring the girl to the United States someday. Now the change in the law has made her future here much less certain, the nanny said.

"It makes me very upset and very mad," she said. "I consider this my home after being here all these years."

Other immigrants say they fear being forced to return to a country they barely know.

Jean, a 27-year-old Lebanese citizen, came to this country with his family when he was 12. He went to high school in Bethesda, attended a junior college in Montgomery County and found a job at a Washington hotel, working his way up during the last seven years from clerk to front-office manager. He has been waiting nearly three years for a hearing before the Board of Immigration Appeals on his green-card petition. He fears that if nothing happens before September, he will have to return to Lebanon.

In addition to English, Jean knows French, Spanish and Italian. But he barely speaks Arabic, the language of his homeland.

"I feel like an American," he said. "I've lived in this culture for so many years, it's hard not to feel like an American."

Linda, a single mother who works for a Washington firm, is angry that she may lose Marites, the Filipino nanny who has taken care of her 4-year-old daughter since the girl was born. After hiring Marites, Linda obtained a certification from the U.S. Labor Department that no American was available to fill the job, then sponsored her for a green card. Since then, the nanny's visa has expired.

Linda said she pays unemployment, Social Security and other taxes for Marites and has tried to work within the system.

Marites said she came to the United States in 1990 with a temporary work visa. Her first two years in her previous household job were "very hard," she said, but the money she managed to send home helped pay for the education of her two brothers and two sisters.

Now, with the new immigration law, "everything that I dreamed of" suddenly is fading away, she said. She is deeply upset at the thought of having to leave her American family, especially "the little girl that I learned to love as if she was my own child," Marites said.

"I think this problem is affecting her, too," she said. "I feel that I belong to this family now. We have a very special bond, and I never want to leave them this way."