Out of The Shadows

By Richard Stengel

Every immigrant has a dream: to be free, unafraid, able to earn a decent living. Those are the benefits that America seems to offer to newcomers to these shores. But the reality is rarely so sunny. For millions of Mexicans, Central Americans, Chinese, Irish and others who enter surreptitiously, America can be as much a prison as a refuge. Most illegal immigrants live along the margins of society, working cheaply, anonymously and without complaint so as to avoid detection by authorities. Although they have become part of the texture of American life, they have remained anxious fugitives, separate and unequal. Part of America, surely, but not of it.

Next week all that could change for millions of immigrants. May 5 marks the inauguration of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, one of the most important and wide-ranging pieces of social legislation in decades. Passed last fall in the final days of the 99th Congress, the law provides the opportunity for aliens who have lived and worked in the U.S. since 1981 to apply for status as permanent residents. In theory it will make it possible for as many as half of the nation's estimated 3 million to 5 million illegal immigrants to emerge from their shadowy half-lives into the sunlight of citizenship.

But the sweeping provisions of the act have aroused more than a little foreboding. No one knows how many immigrants will apply for amnesty from their illegal status or whether the Immigration and Naturalization Service can handle the numbers that may appear with petitions in hand. Many illegals are suspicious of the program, fearing it may be nothing more than a massive sting operation to bring them out of hiding. Moreover, the law has sent a chill through the business community by authorizing penalties against employers caught hiring illegals. Uncertainty about the law and fear of fines have led many employers to needlessly fire workers they suspected of being illegal.

Nor are the effects confined to immigrants. Every American worker must prove to a would-be employer that he or she has a right to work in the U.S. "That's going to be a startling revelation to American citizens," says Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming, an author of the act. It proved an unpleasant revelation for Courtney Minturn. She held top security clearance as a federal employee in Washington, and then moved to New Mexico with her new husband Charles Gomez. Earlier this spring, when Courtney Gomez applied for a new job with the Government through a temporary agency, she was told the agency would not send her on any interviews until she produced the necessary documents. "I kept saying, 'I'm not Mexican,' " recalls Gomez. "But all they said was 'We can't help you until you have a birth certificate.' " The new law, says INS Executive Associate Commissioner Mark Everson, will make more changes in the way Americans lead their lives than perhaps any legislation in recent memory."

Known as the Simpson-Rodino bill, the reform act was the culmination of a five-year effort in Congress to stanch the increasing flow of illegal immigration. Romano Mazzoli, the Kentucky Congressman who was a key sponsor of the original legislation in the House, sums up the sentiment behind it: "Any nation that doesn't have control over its borders is a nation whose central core might be threatened." The law is based on a carrot-stick principle: it offers legal status to long-term immigrants while mandating sanctions against employers who knowingly hire more recent arrivals. Illegal aliens who can prove they have been permanent residents in the U.S. since before Jan. 1, 1982, will be granted temporary resident status. After 18 months they are eligible to become permanent residents -- and eventually U.S. citizens. Because of the need for seasonal labor on farms, the bill offers amnesty to workers who have worked in U.S. agriculture for at least 90 days in each of the past three years. Illegal immigrants have one year in which to apply for legalization.

To stamp out the incentive for aliens to enter the U.S. illegally, the law cracks down on businesses that offer them jobs. Beginning June 1, every employer in America, from the Beverly Hills housewife who takes on a Mexican gardener to the Lower Manhattan garmentmaker who hires dozens of Chinese seamstresses, must become a kind of INS agent. Employers must demand such documents as a U.S. passport or birth certificate, proof of naturalization or a resident-alien card, and then complete an I-9 verification form for each employee.

Like the tax code, the immigration law will depend on employers' cooperation to work; like the tax code, it imposes strict penalties for noncompliance. For the twelve months after June 1, employers will risk only a citation for any violations. After that, they can be hit with penalties that range from $250 to $2,000 for each illegal worker hired. For repeated offenses, the fine will rise to as much as $10,000 for each illegal alien. Employers, however, cannot be fined for illegals hired before Nov. 6, 1986, the date on which the bill was passed.

Implementing these widespread measures will be a gargantuan undertaking for the INS, already overtaxed by the job of rounding up and deporting more than a million aliens a year. To handle amnesty petitions, the agency plans to open some 100 legalization centers, creating an entire new bureaucracy. "Even Sears and McDonald's would find opening 100 operations around the country a tall order," says the INS's Everson. The service has hired 2,200 new people, purchased $18 million worth of new furniture and 600 desktop computers. Is the agency worried about the deluge? "Hell, yes, I'm worried," says William Zimmer, INS legalization director for the Southern region. "It's like an actor on opening night. Who knows how many we're going to get?"

The Federal Government will not shoulder the burden alone: INS has turned for help to such groups as the Presiding Bishop's Fund, the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, World Relief and the U.S. Catholic Conference. More than 250 organizations have been approved; they are expected to advise and assist 2 million aliens at more than 500 sites around the country. In Brooklyn, N.Y., all 221 Catholic churches have been enlisted. The parishes are handing out kits containing instructions on legalization, an application form and sample letters to landlords, employers, utilities and schools that can be used to verify U.S. residence.

But a large number of illegals may hang back, at least initially. Some are skeptical: they cannot believe that the remorseless federal agency they have long feared is suddenly offering them the keys to the country. They are worried that INS will use the information gathered from their applications to deport them if they fail to qualify for legal status. (The law specifically forbids the use of information gathered for legalization for any other purpose: INS, for example, cannot turn over tax information on aliens to the Internal Revenue Service.) Another reason for hesitation is that amnesty will not extend to family members of applicants. Thus, if a husband qualifies for legal residency and his wife and children do not, they can be deported.

Many illegals feel it is impossible to prove that they have spent the past five years in the U.S. Working for cash, living under assumed names, moving frequently, these shadow citizens are now told to furnish the incriminating documents they once tried to avoid: rent and telephone receipts, pay slips, tax forms. "The documentation requirements for applicants are written in an Alice-in-Wonderland world," says Peter Schey, a Los Angeles immigrant advocate. "Illegal aliens don't leave a paper trail. INS is treating these people as if they were IBM executives with resumes in their back pockets."

Confronted by the often bewildering requirements of the bill, many illegal aliens have been suckered into fly-by-night scams hatched by crooked self-styled "visa consultants" and "immigration counselors." In East Palo Alto, Calif., Alejandra, a 20-year-old Mexican college student who has been living in the U.S. since 1977, forked over several thousand dollars to a "counselor" at Wally's Immigration Service for what turned out to be phony immigration applications for herself and her family. Later the counselor vanished.

One of the most common swindles involves notaries public who pass themselves off as influential officials. In Spanish-speaking countries, a notario publico is a man of influence, nearly equivalent to a lawyer. Many illegals learn only after parting with their money that a U.S. notary is usually nothing more than a witness to a signature. Notaries can lose their licenses if they are convicted of such misrepresentation. "The new law," says Texas Assistant Attorney General LaMonte Freerks, "is a growth industry in rip-offs."

Yet some illegals, who have overcome their fears and skepticism, believe the law to be a godsend. Maria Vasquez, 52, crossed the Rio Grande ten years ago and has been cleaning and vacuuming offices in the canyons of downtown Houston ever since. The 5-ft.-tall grandmother from Durango, Mexico, takes home $150 every two weeks -- probably less than the minimum wage but ! considerably more than she made south of the border. The money does not last long; Vasquez supports her daughter Carmela, 31, as well as Carmela's two children. She plans to apply for the amnistia, but she is not betting that she will get it. "If it happens, I'll be very happy," she says.

She is having trouble coming up with the $905 necessary to pay INS for processing her family's application and for the assistance provided her by Catholic Charities. (The Government is charging an application fee of $185 for each petitioner.) "I'll find a way to get it," says Vasquez. "The opportunities will be too good with the amnesty. It will be wonderful living in the open."

In the meantime her current employers are threatening to fire her because she lacks legal credentials. Congress included an antidiscrimination provision in the bill, making it illegal for employers to take measures against permanent or temporary residents who have shown an intention to become citizens. Yet already civil-liberties groups have reported widespread firings of Hispanic workers. Some employers, exploiting the bafflement of many illegals, are demanding bonds from workers as a security against sanctions.

Hispanic advocates contend that the antidiscrimination provisions are too lax. Moreover, the Justice Department has ruled that an employer must "intentionally" discriminate in order to be prosecuted. Since intent is so difficult to prove, asserts Democratic Congressman Barney Frank, author of the act's antidiscrimination provision, the Justice interpretation has taken the teeth out of the law.

For their part, however, employers complain that the bill puts them in a damned-if-we-do, damned-if-we-don't position: they face penalties for hiring illegals and prosecution for discriminating against those they may mistakenly believe to be illegal. Like many of the immigrants, employers are critical of INS for not providing clearer guidance.

"I think it's the biggest farce ever brought upon the American public," says Richard Aldridge Jr., president of one of Texas' largest wholesale nurseries. Like many businessmen, Aldridge fears that the bill will make it all but impossible to hire certain types of workers. In peak summer season, he estimates, 20% of his 200-person work force consists of illegal immigrants. In the old days, he says, Hispanics "walked in the door, said, 'I want to work,' filled out a little questionnaire and were put on the payroll." Now, says Aldridge, he will be inundated with paperwork and will be hard pressed to hire anyone to do the backbreaking work of hoeing and hand cultivating, which does not entice many Anglos. "It's pick-and-shovel stoop labor that's tough and hard. The American worker shies away from that type of work."

Some employers feel they are being hit with a double blow: losing able immigrant workers and having to hire untested and untrained Americans at higher wages. Jack Ruggs, executive vice president of the New Mexico restaurant association, sees the effect of the bill as "catastrophic." "My members' biggest concern," he says, "is losing good, well-trained employees as cooks and chefs. That will cost money, and so will the time it takes to train new people."

Many farmers are used to picking up day laborers and putting them on the back of a truck without bothering to examine papers. This summer they will have to fill out I-9 forms before a single crop is picked. "The biggest problem," says Ed Angstadt, president of the Grower-Shipper Vegetable Association of Central California, "is the increased paperwork and the increased problems employers will have in documenting people they hire." Angstadt suggests that the farmer's acute need for workers may pre-empt his fear of being fined for

hiring them.

Indeed, U.S. businesses may be so hooked on the supply of cheap foreign workers that the new immigration controls are doomed to fail, no matter how tough the penalties for violations. Nor does the law address the reasons that impel immigrants from places like El Salvador, Guatemala and Haiti to ford rivers and climb barbed-wire fences to come to America. "It deals only with half the equation, the pull factor," says Gilbert Paul Carrasco, director of immigration services for the U.S. Catholic Conference. "The law pays no heed to the push factor of the sending country. People are going to leave their countries for reasons of their own. This country has such a history of opportunity, it would take decades to turn that around."

For Yolanda Perez, at least, the new law represents the realization of the dream. A Mexican-born, 28-year-old Houston housekeeper, she waded across the Rio Grande a decade ago and fell in love with her adopted country. She has already filled out an application for amnesty, and she hopes next Tuesday, May 5, will be the first day of the rest of her new life. "I'm so happy," she says. "I prayed and prayed the INS wouldn't find me. I never knew what % the next month would bring. Now I'll be able to make plans for the future. I already feel like it's my country."

CHART: TEXT NOT AVAILABLE

CREDIT: TIME Chart by Joe Lertola

CAPTION: THE OTHER AMERICANS

Some 3 million to 5 million legal aliens live in the U.S. according to the Bureau of Census. About half could qualify for amnesty.

DESCRIPTION: Shows the percentage of illegal aliens and what states they settle.

With reporting by Anne Constable/Washington and Richard Woodbury/Houston