As the deadline for seeking amnesty approaches, a coalition of immigrant advocate groups Monday urged all foreigners who may be eligible for legalization to apply before midnight Wednesday.
”Our concern is to get as many eligible people as possible to apply,”
said Craig Mousin, director of legalization for Travelers & Immigrants Aid, one of about 30 agencies that belongs to the Chicago Committee on Immigrant Protection.
Under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, illegal immigrants who can prove that they have lived in the U.S. since Jan. 1, 1982, may apply for legalization.
The coalition is especially concerned about immigrants who were once ineligible to apply but are now qualified because of recent changes in the law`s regulations, Mousin said at a press conference in the Dirksen Federal Building.
Last October, the Immigration and Naturalization Service changed its interpretation of the law`s regulations and said it would not disqualify immigrants who lived in the U.S. unlawfully before Jan. 1, 1982, and then left the country and returned legally with a valid visa. Before this ruling, immigrants who returned on a tourist visa, for example, were ineligible to apply for legalization.
In March, a federal judge ordered the INS to allow immigrants who had violated their tourist or student visas before Jan. 1, 1982, to apply for legalization, a ruling that could affect about 50,000 people nationwide. The court ordered the immigration service to allow these immigrants to file their applications without paying the $185 filing fee, Mousin said.
Immigrants who may now qualify for legalization under the judge`s ruling can receive help in filing their applications at a workshop sponsored by Travelers & Immigrants Aid at 7 p.m. Tuesday at 4750 N. Sheridan Rd.
Other immigrants haven`t applied because they had been told that accepting welfare for their American-born children would disqualify them as public charges, Mousin said.
But recently, the INS changed its interpretation of that rule, and immigrants who receive public aid for their American-born children are eligible to apply for legalization.
”There have been too many changes regarding the elegibility requirements,” said Arturo Jauregui, a staff attorney with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. ”We feel these changes have not been adequately publicized,” he said.
Applicants aren`t required to have all of their supporting documents or the $185 application fee at the time of the filing, said Cecilia Munoz, director of the Catholic Charities Legalization Program. After an immigrant registers with a volunteer agency, the agency has 60 days to file the completed application and filing fee with the immigration service.
And in response to the large number of last-minute applicants, immigration officials decided to extend the office hours of its four legalization centers. The centers will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday, and from 8 a.m. until midnight Wednesday.
Salvador Elias was one of about 1,500 people who filed their legalization applications Sunday.
”I wasn`t sure if I would apply,” said Elias, 19, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, as he sat on the hood of a station wagon parked in front of the legalization office at 3119 N. Pulaski Rd.
”It didn`t interest me before,” he said. But Elias recently learned that if he ever wants to leave his $6-an-hour job arranging fruit at a Northbrook market and apply for another, he will need a work-authorization card, he said.
”Now, it interests me,” he said.
As of Sunday, 103,050 illegal immigrants in the Chicago area had applied for legalization, about a quarter of the number that the immigration service had projected when the program began last May.
Two lines of about 75 immigrants each snaked around the immigration service office on Pulaski Road, waiting to turn in their applications when the doors opened at 8 a.m., and more than 500 people had submitted applications by 3 p.m., said a legalization officer there.
”It`s human nature to wait until the last moment,” said Brian Perryman, deputy director for the immigration service`s district office in Chicago.
”Some people thought there was an extension and may have held back.”
