Immigrants uncertain as deadline
nears
By LESLIE
WIRPSA NCR Staff Los Angeles
Julio Cerna is a clown. An immigrant from Peru, he has spent much
of the last decade making American children laugh. He also runs a small video
business and works as a disc jockey at a Los Angeles club.
Cerna is one of hundreds of thousands of immigrants who will be
forced to leave the United States before Oct. 23 to process green cards in
their countries of origin if House Republicans vote down Section 245(i) of the
Immigration and Naturalization Act.
Immigration and Naturalization Service officials reported twice
the usual number of applicants at the Los Angeles offices since Congress passed
a three-week extension of 245(i) in late September. The effect of the
legislative move could be particularly significant here since 2 million of the
nations 5 million undocumented immigrants live in California, according
to the INS. As of press time, those closely following the issue said they were
uncertain when the next congressional vote on a permanent extension would be
held.
Panic has begun to set in for some immigrants. One immigration
lawyer has his staff working around the clock to help clients who marry U.S.
citizens beat the deadline for filing the necessary paperwork.
If the measure allowing people to process the paperwork for green
cards in the United States is defeated, Cerna said he will depart for Peru
with my heart in my hand. Like thousands of other immigrants, he
could be barred from re-entry into the United States for up to 10 years because
of the passage last year of a law punishing those who have resided here
illegally for an extended period of time.
This is total chaos, he said. Its terrible
to be breaking up Latino society like this. My whole family is being split up.
And weve never received anything from the state, not welfare, not food
stamps, not medical. Even when my child was young, I didnt ask the U.S.
government for anything.
Cerna said he worked in Peru as a TV cameraman and was forced to
flee when he received threats after interviewing leaders of the violent Shining
Path guerrilla movement. He said he fled Peru without requesting status as a
political exile in the United States. On Oct. 3, Cerna was outside the Federal
Building in Los Angeles, where immigrants had begun forming queues at 5:30 a.m.
to adjust their legal status. Because he had done nothing to date to obtain
permanent status, he would not be able to complete the green card process
before the deadline.
Latino members of Congress and community leaders, who held a press
conference on the steps of the Federal Building, described a permanent
extension of 245(i) as pro-family, probusiness and just.
Elimination of 245(i), according to Moises Escalante, outreach
coordinator at the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, would
cause hardship in family life.
In most families, two people work. If one is gone, families
will become more impoverished. Those who stay will seek social services more
often because with one income, they cannot attend to their needs. There will be
more single parent families. Congresspersons who speak of family values are
contradicting themselves. Of which families do they speak? he said.
Angela Zambrando from the Central American advocacy group CARECEN
said that in addition to disrupting families formed in the United States,
elimination of 245(i) would undermine stability in Central America
as thousands of immigrants return to nations experiencing worse poverty than
before the wars of the 1980s.
Immigrants have little to return to in their homelands said Fr.
Denis ONeil at the largely Central American St. Thomas the Apostle church
in central Los Angeles.
They came up here from El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua
during the bad years of violence and warfare. ... They have to try somehow to
make it here, he said.
ONeil said he understands there must be balance between
peoples right to live and move and the right of nations to keep good
order. But I think sometimes the rights of people, of minorities, are
pushed aside and ignored because we are so busy trying to watch out for the
economic well-being of this country.
With Central American immigrants, ONeil said the United
States has a heightened obligation because of its big role in
creating all the conflict.
Immigration lawyer Eli A. Rich said his staff has worked 16-hour
days processing marriage cases since Clinton signed the extension.
We have a deadline to meet. The only way to become legal in
three weeks is to get married [to a U.S. citizen]. And if I have the power
under the law to help my clients become legal overnight, I cannot rely on more
extensions from President Clinton, Rich said.
Rich sees bleak long-term consequences if 245(i) is eliminated.
Nonpayment of taxes, more crime, people wont be able to work and
earn money, more separation between classes, he said.
You cannot throw someone who has been here 12 years out of
the country in one day. They wont go. Immigrants have stronger wills than
lawmakers. They have to feed families. If you cut out all their exits,
Rich said, they will simply become more desperate and do things society
will not benefit from.
National Catholic Reporter, October 17,
1997
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