by Ana Vinas and Kelly Simmons
Issues regarding immigration and changes to the U.S. immigration laws continue to fill the news during March, as follows:
In March some 125 families of undocumented immigrants, along with immgration rights groups and attorneys staged a protest in front of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) offices in El Paso. At issue are allegations of the INS' refusal to arrest or detain undocumented immigrants who are turning themselves in, in the hopes of obtaining a suspension of deportation hearing and if granted, then legal residency. According to the protesters, the INS does not want to deal with suspension hearings and is waiting until after the deadline to start arresting people and sending them home. After the April 1 deadline only 4000 people nationwide will be able to get suspension of deportation hearings and the standards for obtaining a hearing will become much higher.
Immigration lawyer Carlos Spector told the El Paso Times he thinks the INS just doesn't want the headache of handling suspension of deportation hearings and that officials are being mean spirited. But the INS has denied the allegations that illegal immigrants are being turned away and according to Dan Kane, INS spokesperson, the INS "is already responding to a record number of individuals who are applicants under the suspension of deportation". But, he added, with limited manpower and a flood of requests for citizenship, immigrants seeking deportation suspensions are not a priority.
In Denver, however, INS officials have set up a process by which immigrants can apply for deportation suspension. According to an El Paso Times interview with the Acting Director of the Denver office, the process was set up by immigration lawyers and INS directors.
In other news, the Immigration and Naturalization Service has come under fire for its handling of 800,000 backlogged applications for citizenship in which 180,000 applications were approved without the required background check. Allegations have surfaced that during a new streamlined process, the INS approved the naturalization of thousands of people with criminal records. The streamlined INS program, Citizenship USA, is now coming under congressional investigation following the disclosure by a government audit last year of serious problems in the applicant review process. Republican congressional leaders have accused the White House and the INS of partisan politics by seeking to naturalize record numbers of people so they could vote for Democrats in last year's election. In testimony before a House subcommittee, INS Director Doris Meissner assured angry lawmakers that politics played no part in any mistakes that were made, that all the procedural "glitches" have been fixed, and that a review of 10,000 new citizens with felony records revealed only 170 who were ineligible for citizenship.
Finally, changes to the U.S. immigration law that take place on April 1 include stiffer penalties for smugglers as well as regular travelers who transport undocumented immigrants across the border into the United States. Under the changes, anyone convicted of transporting an undocumented person into the U.S., whether it is for money or a favor for family and friends, will face mandatory prison time of 10 to 16 months with no probation. Immigration rights activists fear the new smuggling law, which removes the need by prosecutors to prove any payment was made, will have far reaching ramifications in border communities with fluid populations and historic ties.
Almost 146,000 undocumented immigrants were detained in the Border Patrol's West Texas/New Mexico sector during fiscal year 1996 and those figures are up 25 percent in the first six months of 1997. In fiscal year 1996, the sector handled 1700 cases of smuggling involving more than 2000 suspected smugglers who were transporting almost 8000 undocumented immigrants.
Sources: El Norte, El Paso Times, Washington Post and AP in El Paso Times