UNITED STATES: Confusion Spreads as New Immigration Laws Take Effect

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

NEW YORK, Apr 1 1997 (IPS) - For a few hours on April 1, even most immigration experts were at a loss to explain whether new U.S. immigration laws were in force or not.

That’s because Federal Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled Monday that the U.S. government had not given enough time to inform the public about the effects of the new laws, and delayed their enforcement by four days. But by Tuesday morning, the government had won a repeal of Sullivan’s stay — and the laws promptly went into force.

The mix-up, which took place appropriately on All Fool’s Day, is just the start of a confusing period for immigrants. The start of the enforcement of immigration laws passed by Congress last year promises a series of new deadlines and hurdles for immigrants seeking to live here or become U.S. citizens, immigration experts say.

“No-one knows exactly how (the new restrictions) will be applied, and that’s what makes it confusing,” says Dan Kesselbrenner, an attorney at the Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild.

But immigrants fearful about the new laws are right about one thing, he adds: “It really is the start of significant anti- immigrant laws…People who made great contributions to the United States, and who could still contribute here, are going to be removed.”

“Latinos and Asians are being targeted through backdoor mechanisms” by the laws, argues Cecilia Munoz, deputy vice- president for policy of the National Council for La Raza, a Washington-based advocacy group on Mexican issues. “It’s very mean-spirited legislation.”

Although the new laws do not name specific ethnicities, she adds, they show a clear preference for certain groups of immigrants to become citizens or residents over others.

The laws add a new barrier to legal immigrants’ ability to sponsor family members to come to the United States, by requiring them to earn at least 125 percent of the federal poverty level before they can become sponsors, Munoz notes. That annual income level — about 19,000 dollars for a family of four — could be too steep for many Latino and Asian immigrants to afford, she contends.

“The real victims here are people trying to reunite with their family members,” she says.

“Although everyone is treated harshly, Europeans are treated less harshly” than immigrants from the developing world, Kesselbrenner says. He argues that the laws enforce stiffer penalties against illegal immigrants who avoid immigration check points — largely Asians or Latin Americans — than against those who overstay their visas, a practise more associated with Europeans.

“There’s a disparate treatment of people from this hemisphere,” Kesselbrenner contends, pointing out that the political push for legislation has come largely from states attracting heavy Mexican and Latino immigration, notably California.

For example, in 1994, nearly 250,000 of 900,000 immigrants admitted by the Immigration and Naturalisation Service (INS) settled in California, with a plurality of them from Mexico. The number of illegal immigrants is believed to be much higher.

In recent years, California and several other western states have voted for ballot initiatives that would restrict illegal immigration and sharply reduce benefits even to legal immigrants. In response, major immigration and welfare bills passed by Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton last year set new deadlines this year for deportations and cut-offs of benefits to immigrants.

Although the immigration bill went into effect Tuesday, many of its harshest provisions will take force over the next few months, experts say.

It is not until the end of September that immigrants who are in the United States illegally will be placed subject to deportation, after which they may not re-enter for at least three years, says Roseann Micallef, executive director of New York’s Centre for Immigrants’ Rights.

But some effects of the laws are immediate, including the worrying possibility that anyone who looks like an immigrant may have to show proof of citizenship or legal residency to avoid deportation or to convince employers of their legal status.

“If they say you’re not a citizen, how do you prove it?” Kesselbrenner says. “Most people don’t carry their passports with them at all times.”

Similarly, starting now, many immigrants will not be able to obtain hearings from independent adjudicators about their status, he adds. “It’s antithetical to what U.S. notions of fair play are about,” he says of the legislation.

Some of the laws face myriad legal challenges from a coalition of immigrants’ rights and civil rights groups. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights — which had called for the four-day suspension — began Tuesday to argue in Washington that the new provisions for asylum hearings contradict INS laws and should be struck down.

The new laws remove the requirement that INS officers inform all potential asylum applicants about their right to apply for asylum, says Matt Briggs, an ACLU spokesman.

Some civil rights advocates worry that some people suffering from abuse abroad will thus never be informed of their asylum rights. That problem was demonstrated vividly last year when Fauziya Kassinga, a Togolese woman who had suffered genital mutilation in her home country, faced problems in convincing the INS of her right to asylum before finally winning her case.

Other immigrants have already begun to prepare alternative ways of remaining in the United States in the face of new deportation threats. Most U.S. cities have reported a dramatic rise in the number of marriages between immigrants and U.S. citizens in recent weeks — even though, Micallef says, such marriages will have no effect at all in changing immigrants’ legal status.

“People are also spending a lot of money on unscrupulous operators” who claim to be able to win them naturalisation, Micallef adds. “People are jumping at whatever they can. That’s not always a good thing.”

Indeed, even the U.S. Justice Department, which controls the INS, seemed to have second thoughts about how efficiently the new laws can be enforced Monday night, when Judge Sullivan had first granted the four-day stay that was later repealed. “It’s going to be sheer chaos,” Justice Department lawyer Linda Wendtland said of the welter of new rules having to be enforced.

“There may be chaos, but it’s of their own making,” shot back Robert Rubin of the Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights, noting the confusion and panic sparked by the announcement of the new laws.