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IMPACT OF LEGALIZATION PR0CK1MC0UNTIN6

UNDOCUMENTED ALIENS IN DfiEiiffi^SUS^

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON

CENSUS AND POPULATION

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

POST OFFICE AND CIVIL SEEVICE

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDREDTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JUNE 1, 1987

Serial No. 100-18

Printed for the use of the Committee on Post Office and Civil Service

U.8. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

77-631 WASHINGTON : 1987

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, Congressional Sales Office

US. Government Printing Office. Washington, DC 20402
COMMITTEE ON POST OFFICE AND CIVIL SERVICE

WILLIAM D

WILLIAM (BILL) CLAY, Missouri

PATRICIA SCHROEDER Colorado

STEPHEN J. SOLARZ, New York

ROBERT GARCIA, New York

MICKEY LELAND, Texas

GUS YATRON, Pennsylvania

MARY ROSE OAKAR Ohio

GERRY SIKORSKI, Minnesota

FRANK McCLOSKEY, Indiana

GARY L ACKERMAN, New York

MERVYN M. DYMALLY, California

MORRIS K. UDALL, Arizona

RON DE LUGO, Virgin Islands

TOM DEYUUA, Staff Director

ROBERT E. LOCKHAKT, General Counsel

PATRICIA F. RISSLER, Deputy Staff Director and Chief Clerk

JOSEPH A. FISHER, Minority Staff Director

FORD, Michigan, Chairman

GENE TAYLOR, Missouri

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

CHARLES PASHAYAN. JR., California

FRANK HORTON, New York

JOHN T. MYERS, Indiana

DON YOUNG, Alaska

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CENSUS AND POPULATION

MERVYN M. DYMALLY, California, Chairman

ROBERT GARCIA, New York CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland

GERRY SIKORSKI, Minnesota DAN BURTON, Indiana

TERRIANN LOWENTHAL, Subcommittee Staff Director

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3

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CONTENTS

Statements of: Page

Hon. Edward Koch, mayor, city of New York 5

Hon. Angelo del Toro, assemblyman, New York State Legislature, cochairman, New York State Legislative Task Force on Demographic

Research and Reapportionment 20

Frederick A.O. Schwarz, Esq., Cravath, Swaine & Moore Law Offices, and

board member, NAACP Legal Defense Fund 27

Chris Petersen, Assistant District Director, Examinations Branch, New

York District, Immigration and Naturalization Service 34

Peter A. Bounpane, Assistant Director, Bureau of the Census 36

Arthur C. Helton, Esq., Lawyers' Committee for Human Rights 58

James Haggerty, regional legalization director, U.S. Catholic Conference,

Migration and Refugee Services 78

Muzaffar Chishti, director, International Ladies Garment Workers Union

[ILGWU] immigration project 85

Joseph Etienne, Haitian Centers Council 92

Roy Bryce-La Porte, professor, College of Staten Island 95

Statement submitted by: Stanley Mark, Asian American Legal Defense and

Education Fund 118

«*f> (HI)

^

IMPACT OF LEGALIZATION PROCESS ON

COUNTING OF UNDOCUMENTED ALIENS IN

DECENNIAL CENSUS

MONDAY, JUNE 1, 1987

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CENSUS AND POPULATION,

COMMITTEE ON POST OFFICE AND CIVIL SERVICE,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 9:30 a.m., at 26 Federal Plaza, New York, New York, in room 305, Hon. Mervyn M.

Dymally (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Mr. DYMALLY. The meeting of the Subcommittee on Census and

Population of the Post Office and Civil Service Committee is

hereby called to order. I want to extend a special welcome and

sense of deep thanks to the Mayor, for coming today to testify. I

would like to welcome, of course, all our witnesses.

Today's hearing is a continuation of formal congressional review

of the Census Bureau's plans for the 1990 decennial census, and is

in response to important concerns raised by Congressman Robert

Garcia.

I want to commend Congressman Garcia, who is the immediate

past Chairman of this Subcommittee, for identifying the need for

this hearing and for his continuing dedication to census issues, as

the Ranking Majority Member.

Today the subcommittee will review the potential problems with

counting undocumented aliens during the Constitutionally-mandated 1990 decennial census.

The enormity of this task can be seen clearly when one looks at

the figures given by the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

The INS estimates that there are approximately 6 million illegal

aliens in the United States, with about a million residing in New

York State. Of these figures, it is further estimated that about 4

million are eligible for amnesty under the new immigration law.

Among the issues we will address is the fear of a breach of confidentiality, which is at the heart of the reluctance of many undocumented people to be counted in the census.

While almost 4 million persons may be eligible for permanent

resident status under the amnesty program, there will still be millions who do not qualify and who will not be in the amnesty program, which we face this year and the coming years.

These people must be assured that the information they supply

on census forms will be kept strictly confidential.

(1)
In addition, they must be alerted to the importance of participating in the census. Undocumented persons are eligible for certain

federal benefits, such as free public schooling for their children,

and these benefits cannot be fairly allocated without accurate figures from the census.

We have divided today's witnesses into panels, to address these

and other issues from the perspective of government officials, community organizations, and human rights groups.

Because of the large number of witnesses who have asked to testify today, we ask that oral statements be kept to a maximum of

approximately five minutes. You may summarize your written

statement, and the entire statement will be entered into the

record.

And now, it is my great pleasure to relinquish the Chair to the

former Chairman of the Subcommittee. But before doing so, I want

to recognize my friend and colleague, Mr. Schumer, for an opening

statement.

Mr. SCHUMER. I thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And thank

you, my friend and colleague, Bobby Garcia, for inviting me to participate as a member of the New York Congressional delegation.

Let me say that those of us in the Congressional delegation have

something very real at stake in the census count. It's estimated

that New York could lose as many as five and most likely three

Congressional seats after the 1990 census, if present demographic

trends continue.

That, of course, means a loss in clout, of our delegation in Washington. Our delegation was once 39. If we lose five seats it will go

down to 29, a loss of ten seats in only 20 years. It also means less

federal funding for so many of the kinds of programs that we

depend upon in New York. The kind of program mix that most

helps us is quite different than in many other parts of the country

and depends not on the number of people we have in our state, but

rather the number of people the census counts in our state.

There are a number of concerns that the entire Congressional

delegation has. I'm the whip of the New York City delegation, and

we'd like to make these clear with the Chairman and former Chairman's permission.

One is that homeless people should be counted at a time when

they can be located, in shelters and other locations. If the count is

in the Spring, as the Census Bureau intends, many of the homeless

are in no particular place. And I don't know how the heck they get

counted.

The Census Bureau has said that it will make undercount adjustments after the census numbers are sent to the President, and not

before. In New York, we have suffered from the undercount. The

estimate was that we were under-counted between 500,000 and

860,000 persons in 1980. That would have been enough to retain

maybe one, maybe two of the five congressional seats we lost.

Unless the Census Bureau adopts an undercount policy, the Task

Force will have to use numbers without an undercount included in

dividing up the Congressional seats.

State and local governments have only ten days to complain

after the count is made. That's absolutely, in words of someone I've
3

heard speak many times, ridiculous. His head picked up at that

word.

How one can analyze the data and make complaints within ten

days when the census process is a ten-year process makes no sense.

Another concern of ours is how the 1980 census collected data

about race. Not until three questions after the race question was

there an inquiry about hispanic origin. That confused a lot of

people, with good reason.

Finally, on the alien legalization process, which has already

begun, we are, as a delegation, trying to put pressure on INS to do

more for us. New York is estimated to have the third highest

number of illegal residents, and most of them are in an urban setting, undocumented residents.

We only have five offices. California has 28. The State of Washington has five. In my home borough and in that of my colleague,

Congressman Towns, there's not an INS office, a Legalization

Office. Nor is there one in the Bronx. That is something that we

hope to rectify.

So I hope that the Census Bureau works with this Committee,

and I pledge to work with them. I know we had a delegation meeting where we discussed these issues. The entire New York delegation pledges to work with you and our leader on these issues,

Bobby Garcia, to rectify the situation.

I thank the Chairman.

Mr. DYMALLY. Congressman Towns.

Mr. TOWNS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I want to thank you for allowing me to participate in today's

hearing on the counting of undocumented aliens in the 1990

Census.

We are fortunate, Mr. Chairman, to have a city government

which is more supportive of the undocumented than most jurisdictions. With the large numbers of undocumented aliens in New

York City, our progressive attitude has been instrumental in ensuring that services like health and education are provided to this

population.

No one, of course, is saying that everything is perfect. But I

think that local officials have tried to be responsive to the undocumented and they should be commended for their efforts.

New immigration laws, Mr. Chairman, may finally open the door

for the undocumented to join mainstream America. The legalization program established by the Immigration Act of 1986 offers

some real hope to many in the undocumented community.

Yet, we must also remember that this new program is not an

"amnesty." The burden is squarely on the shoulders of the alien to

prove that he or she can meet the requirements for legalization.

And after three community forums on this issue, proving that

you have resided in the United States continuously prior to January 1, 1982, is no easy matter. Moreover, since Congress did not

grant any legalization benefits to the immediate family members of

legalized aliens, many people may choose not to come forward and

apply for legalization, and/or they may be reluctant to cooperate

with the census takers.

Despite these difficulties, we must still encourage the undocumented community to participate in the census. Many federal pro-
grams' allocations to states and localities are based on population

data. Without an accurate count, New York will be shortchanged

in terms of goods and services from the Federal Government.

Consequently, Mr. Chairman, I look forward to hearing from our

panelists today on how we can facilitate the participation of the

undocumented aliens in the 1990 Census. I'm sure that their insights will be extremely useful.

Thank you for holding this hearing in New York City, a place

where we feel that it's definitely needed. Thank you very much.

Mr. GARCIA. Thank you very much, Mr. Towns.

I'll be very brief, Mr. Mayor, because I know you've had to sit

through a good deal of dialogue here.

I've always been very supportive of the legalization program as it

pertains to this legislation. I've had some problems with other sections of the bill, but as far as legislation is concerned, I've been

supportive.

But just let me say to all of you who are here, I think that ten

years goes by fairly quickly, because just ten short years ago we

started working on the Census in this Subcommittee. We went

through the Census Count of 1980, and here we are coming up to

the Census Count of 1990. So that life goes by pretty fast.

There are several people who are going to be testifying today.

I'm anxious to see and hear from them as to what procedures are

being taken to ensure that those persons who come and apply for

citizenship are given every courtesy and made sure that their presence here at 26 Federal Plaza, or wherever the Immigration Legislation office may be, are treated with respect and given the type of

support that they need to make certain that they can stay here in

the United States.

There are several other parts of the bill. There's one part I would

like to make very clear. I think the Mayor may or may not be able

to confirm this. But in the City of New York, we really have not

lost that much population over the last ten years. As a matter of

fact, we may have gained ever so slightly.

The problem is that as you look at the whole situation of the

1990 Census as it pertains to reapportionment, we will be going

from 515,000 approximately per Congressional District to over

550,000, which essentially means that while New York City may

have gained a little bit and everybody will assume that because of

that we're going to be okay and we're going to be able to maintain

what we have, but that's not true.

I anticipate that we'll lose anywhere from four to five seats

again in 1992. So in the question of those persons who ought to

come forward and who are looking to stay here, it is essential that

we get an accurate count. I know that the Mayor has worked very

hard after the completion of the 1980 Census to get the undercount

adjusted. And to this day, with his counsel, Mr. Schwartz, who's

here, it was like hitting our heads against the wall. It was close to

impossible.

And when you get into the rush of the Census of 1990 and all

that takes place within a year or two after that, with the compiling

of figures and statistics in the very short period of time that they

give a municipality, given the time that they need to document

that, it becomes virtually impossible.
So I say that to you so that we're all aware that the task ahead

of us is not going to be easy and that the task as it relates to the

City of New York and the State of New York is going to be difficult

as well.

My opening statement will be placed in the record at this time.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT GARCIA

Mr. Chairman, I would like to commend you for holding this timely and important hearing on the impact of the legalization process on the 1990 Census. Despite

my vigorous opposition to what is now the immigration law, I was always very supportive of the legalization provison of the bill. This historic program began on May

5 of this year. By all accounts, New York City has the second largest population of

undocumented aliens and I'm eager to hear from the officials and groups represented here today on how things are going.

For example, how many persons have applied for legalization in New York? Does

this number reflect previous estimates? If so, are the facilities capable of handling

the number of persons applying? If not, what is being done to encourage persons

who are eligible to apply for legalization? If persons are concerned over the confidentiality of applications, what steps are being taken by the INS to ensure that this

bill will not affect the 1990 Census?

Of great interest to me as well as the impact the newly documented aliens will

have on the 1990 Census. I have worked hard for many years to correct the serious

undercount of minorities in the Census. The consequences of undercounts, as we

know, will be severe for the City of New York and New York State in terms of services, federal monies and reapportionment. I look forward to working with the

Census Bureau and this Subcommittee to ensure an accurate count in 1990. Thank

you.

Mr. GARCIA. Mayor Koch, we would like you to proceed with

your statement.

STATEMENT OF HON. EDWARD KOCH, MAYOR, CITY OF NEW

YORK

Mr. KOCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and the members of the

committee, and Mr. Dymally, who is the new chairman of the committee.

What I'd like to do is to file my formal remarks, and at the

outset to introduce the two gentlemen who are sitting with me.

Peter Zimroth is the Corporation Counsel of the City of New York,

and Fritz Schwartz was his immediate predecessor.

Fritz is going to be testifying in a panel that follows. But I

thought it would look very impressive if I came with two lawyers.

These two Corporation Counsels consider the Census issue to be

one of our highest priorities. So to have their counsel is extremely

important.

Now, the first point I want to make is that the amnesty law, socalled, which I supported, has great flaws in it as it relates to getting the benefits. I'm not going to take the time of this committee,

which doesn't have jurisdiction over that, to point out the flaws,

other than to say that there should be amendments and corrections

so as to allow those people who were to be covered by it to, in fact,

get the benefits of it. We see lots of people being excluded who

should be covered.

Now, it is because of those exclusionary areas that we are going

to have another undercount, because people are going to be afraid

to come in who are legitimately to be covered but can t produce the

necessary papers, and a whole host of other things that we think

ought to be changed in the law. But there is a second group which
is quite large and which, likewise, will be undercounted and those

are people who are doubled up in apartments.

We estimate 100,000 families in the City of New York are living

in publicly funded apartments with other families. It's a violation

of the law to do that. It's a violation of the law, and if we were to

enforce the law, we would, and particularly in our low income

housing projects, federal and city, we would have to throw people

out. Obviously, we're not going to do that. But people are not going

to come in and tell the federal census taker "yes, we're living here;

we're not on the rent rolls; but we're living here." They re not

going to do that. And those people will be the ones who will be undercounted.

And therefore, the heart of this is, that there will be a physical

undercount•we know that, because there was one before. I mean,

here we have the Census Bureau saying that the 1980 undercount

in New York City, estimated by the Census Bureau itself, was

524,000 people. Do you know that 524,000 people is roughly the population of the City of San Francisco?

And that's the number that was undercounted. It is more than

one Congressional seat. Why should we have that situation? Now,

what do you do, recognizing that an undercount will eliminate our

right to Members of Congress, will eliminate the possibility of our

getting, and here the count is somewhere between 26 million and

52 million dollars in Federal aid a year. In a ten-year period that

could be half a billion dollars in federal funds that we lose as a

result of per capita formulas that we are already harmed by, and

now we don't even get the benefit of the per capita aspect.

There is another area in which we suffer losses, and that is that

the state legislature bases its allocation of seats in the Assembly

and the State Senate on the Federal Census. So, we will lose in the

area of Members of Congress; we will lose in the area of Members

of the State Legislature; we will lose in the area of actual dollar

allocations.

Now, how, then, can you handle this? It's not hard. The Census

Bureau itself has said that it can do the job with a statistical formula, to take care of the undercount. But they don't want to

commit themselves to actually doing it.

They have said it works. Let me just read about a parapraph

from my formal statement.

We know, already, that adjustment is feasible. The Bureau has

itself said so in the past. Indeed, the Bureau has used adjustment

in the 1970 census and in post-census studies since then. And

among the outside experts who have supported its use are the

Census Advisory Committee of the American Statistical Association, the American Economic Association, the American Marketing

Association, as well as a panel of the Committee on National Statistics of the National Academy of Sciences.

So what we are really asking, bottom line, is that the Congress

mandate the Census Bureau to use a statistical adjustment formula.

That's the end of my speech.

Peter?

Mr. ZIMROTH. I have really nothing to add.

Mr. KOCH. Fritz? You get two cracks.
Mr. SCHWARTZ. I'll do it later.

Mr. KOCH. Okay.

Mr. SCHWARTZ. Everything he said is true.

Mr. GARCIA. Mayor, from what I read in the New York Times,

I'm shocked at your brevity.

Mr. KOCH. NO, that's not true, Mr. Chairman. Matter of fact,

some people complain that I'm too brief.

[Mr. Koch's prepared statement follows.]
TESTIMONY OF

EDWARD I. KOCH

MAYOR OF THE CITY OF HEW YORK

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CENSUS AND POPULATION

OF THE

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON POST OFFICE AND CIVIL SERVICE

NEW YORK, NEW YORK

JUNE 1, I9S7

Mr. Chairmen, members of the Subcommittee, thank you for

the opportunity to speak today about the effect on the 1080 oanaua of

the amnesty program under the now Immigration law.

This Is another of those matters In which there la both

food news and bad nawa. The food nawa la that, at last, wa have a

comprehensive amnesty program that will enable many New York City

resident* to attain legal statue and, ultimately, to become United

States citizens. I think It la fair to assume that, once these Individuals do attain legal status, they win participate more freely in the

census process, no longer afraid that their participation will result In

deportation. The result should be a better census in 1990.

The bad nawa is that, although the census may be improved somewhat, it will not yet be satisfactory. Many undocumented aliens in New York will be ineligible for amnesty, and they

will continue to live in fear and thus continue to avoid the census.

Moreover, there will remain olasses of Individuals other than undocumented aliens who have their own reasons for not cooperating with

the census effort. I will talk about them later. The general point I
9

want to nude* la that, however encouraged wa may be that tha amnaaty profram will bring aoma allana out of tha ahadowa, wa cannot uaa

this to become ooraplaoent about tha 1880 oanaua. Tha deeper problems with tha traditional oanaua methods persist, and large cities Ilka

Naw York will continue to be disproportionately undoreountad unlaaa

tha Census Bureau supplements these methods with statistical

adjustment.

Tha City of Naw York la playing a vary active role in tha

amnesty profram. Wa have orfanlsed an Immigration Policy Task

Force to help with tha Implementation of tha profram here. Wa have

assisted tha Immigration and Naturalisation Service In setting up its

amnesty offices. Wa have begun a large public information campaign,

and helped to coordinate tha efforts of private, oommunlty-baaed

organisations to provide further assistance to amnesty applicants. Wa

have also alerted tha various City agencies -- in particular, our publie hospitals and board of education -- to gear up to provide applicants with tha documents they naed in order to establish that they

have lived here for tha requisite period of time.

Despite these efforts, however, there are provisions In both

tha Immigration statute and its implementing regulations that will

severely limit tha number of undocumented aliens who qualify for amnesty. The statute, for example, denies amnesty to those persons

who came to this country after January 1, 1983, or who came here

legally on a nonimmigrant visa that expired after January 1, 1982. It

la impossible to determine how many of our undocumented allana are
10

thereby disqualified, but we estimate that a great many are. They

will remeln in the shadows.

The implementing regulations impose further obstacles.

First, with only a few exoeptlone, aliens who have left the United

States for any trip of more than forty-five days are ineligible for

amnesty. Again, we do not know how many people wDl thereby be

disqualified, but we suspeot that the number is large -- people who

returned to their old homes to visit family members, or perhaps to

take cars of members who were 111. Beoond, aliens whose children

have received public assistance (the children are eligible If they are

United States oltltens) may be Ineligible, since the aliens may be said

to be likely "public charges."

There will also be documentation problems; individuals who

have lived here continuously for five years may still have trouble

proving this. Proof will be particularly difficult for those who have

actively sought to avoid public exposure, as many have, or who have

Uved In other states. Moreover, many applicants will find It

necessary to procure their documentation from their employers. If,

however, the employers have not paid taxes for these employees, the

employers may be reluctant to provide any evidence that wDl reveal

the tax evasion. These documentation problems will be compounded

by the short one-year tune period In which Individuals must complete

their amnesty applications.

Finally, many individuals eligible for amnesty may be discouraged from applying out of purely Irrational fear. They may, for
11

example, come from totalitarian countries. In which promises of amnesty are only poUtloai ruses. Although the Immigration and Naturalisation Servloe haa assured thaae Individual! that, absent fraud, any

Information they provide will not bo used for the purpose of deporting thorn, many will remain skeptical and will not oome forward to

register. Wo know that bona tide amnoaty programs in other countries have boon hobbled by suoh fears.

The foot la that this amneety program, however well-intentioned, It going to mlsa a groat many of the undocumented aliens in

the City. At the eerae time, wo can expect moat of the people missed

to remain here, deeplte the now employer aanotlona. Many will have

family members who are given amnoaty, and they will want to stay

with thorn. Other* will have other eocial ties to this country. Still

others will find that Ufa in Now York, even without the benefits of

amnoaty, la preferable to life in an economically depressed or

politically repressive oountry. They will thus stay on In the City,

and may again avoid the census taken.

But even if every undocumented alien in this City were, by

some miracle, eligible for amnaaty and Own able to prove his or her

eligibility, there would still be a dramatic underoount in the 1880

census. As I aald before, there are significant groups other than

undocumented aliens who wiQ continue to have an Interest in not cooperating with the census effort. Thar* are, for example, more than

100,000 famfllea in Now York who are forced by economic circumstances to ahars atnglo housing units with other famillea, related or
12

unrelated. Such doubling-up la Illegal, and the famlllM, fearing

evictlon, may refuse to tall the oensus takers the number of people

who In fact reside in their apartments. There la also the City's

growing homeless population, many of whom are afraid that information they provide to the census takers may Jeopardise their public

assistance payments. Although the City la developing method* to improve the headeount of the homeless, It la likely that they will continue to pose problems. Like undocumented aliens, the doubled-up

and the homeless are people with specific tears about revealing information about themselves.

There arn nt.hnr prnhlmm confronting census taken in olties like New York - the fear of crime, the difficulty of Identifying

individual units in many apartment buildings, the difficulty of

gathering responses from residents, whether oltlzens or aliens, who

are not proficient in English. The General Accounting Offloe has

Itself acknowledged that these are intractable problems, and that

refinements of traditional headeount methods will not substantially

reduoe the disproportionate undercount.

Deaplte these problems, the Census Bureau has not yet

made a commitment to the one methodology that can redress the undercount -- statistical adjustment. The Bureau explains that It

cannot decide whether to adjust until it knows that adjustment is

"feasible," and until "outside experts support it."

We already know, however, that adjustment la feasible; the

Bureau has Itself said so In the past. Indeed, the Bureau has used
13

adjustment In the 1870 census and In poat-oensal studies since than.

Among the "outside experts" who have supported Ita use are the Census Advisory Committees of the American Statistical Association, the

American Economic Association, and the American Marketing Association, as well as a panel of the Committee on National Statistics of the

National Academy of Sciences. It is odd that the Bureau continues to

suggest that there are doubts as to feasibility.

I have spoken to you before about the significance of the

undereount in this City, an underoount which the Census Bureau has

Itself estimated to be about 824,000 people. One oruolai effeot of the

underoount is to deprive the City of its full share of representation

in Congress and in the New York State Assembly. What that means

is that we have not been fully represented in political decisions that

fundamentally affect us. This is not only unfair; it is unconstituA seoond effeot Is that the City has lost between (26 million

and $82 million annually in federal funds under certain programs with

formulas tied to population. Over a period of ten years, this translates into a loss of up to half a billion dollars in services to New

York. We have also lost stats funds under programs similarly tied to

population.

1

*' '1 effeot of the underoount is that our own ability to

develop programs and policies to improve the City has been reduced.

Without ace- •• census data, the City'e efforts to distribute fairly
14

Its bade MI-VIMM • homing, education, sanitation, health oare, and

polio* and fire protaetlon • ara neceaaarlly undercut.

I do not want to and on too oritlcal a noto. I do ballava

that tha amnaaty profram la an Important and valuabla project, to

which tha City haa oontrtbutad and will oontlnua to contribute. But I

urfa you not to look on tha program aa a solution to tha undaroount

problam. Tha amnaaty program will no doubt anablo aoma undocumented aliens to baooma legal residents, and this should encourage

them to participate In tha oenaua process. But many undocumented

aliens will not baooma legal residents, and their wariness of the

census will oontlnua. Moreover, tha other groups who have refused

In the past to participate fully in tha census -• doubled-up families,

for example •• will oontlnua to avoid participation. Unless Congress

passes legislation that requires the Census Bureau to use statistical

adjustment, our census will oontlnua to be deeply flawed. This Is a

matter of great legal, political, and economic Importance, and 1 urge

you to nova forward with auoh legislation.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for organising this hearing and

permitting tha City to speak on this matter.
15

Mr. GARCIA. I would like to give our colleague from Brooklyn,

Congressman Owens, an opportunity, if there's anything he would

like to open up with, before we start questioning the Mayor.

Mr. OWENS. NO, I have no opening statement, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. GARCIA. Okay. Mr. Mayor, I have one question.

As far as you know, what steps has the city taken to assist with

the implementation of the legalization program?

Mr. KOCH. We have a panel, a city-wide committee, that I appointed, working very closely with the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Census Bureau. We are engaging in efforts

through advertising to encourage people to come forward. We have

a special office at our City Planning Department that relates to

those who are in this status of aliens and undocumented.

Mr. GARCIA. Have any reports been filtered back to you yet as to

how that's going?

Mr. KOCH. Well, it's difficult. There is no question but that there

is resistance on the part of those who we are seeking to help to

come forward and be identified because of the fear that they may

be entrapped.

One of the entrapments is that you, yourself, may have fit everything, but your kids, American citizens, were entitled and you received welfare benefits for them. This, then, makes you subject to

the charge that you may become a public charge in the future,

which is one of the prohibitions under the amnesty legislation. And

that might cause people not to come forward, who are otherwise

covered.

Mr. GARCIA. One further question along that line. One of the

things I have noticed, and especially in the City of New York

where we have such a large number of people who are coming from

the Carribbean and who are coming from Central and South America, that the Catholic Church plays a very important role.

Mr. KOCH. Most important.

Mr. GARCIA. And we have, we are going to have a witness here,

Mr. James Hagerty, who works with the United States Catholic

Conference, who will be testifying. One of the thoughts that I had,

and I had called the Archdiocese in New York; and a suggestion to

you, Mr. Mayor, is that if there is some way possible, will you, the

Cardinal and the other people who are responsible, the religious

leaders of the city, see if you can get together and hold a major

press conference?

I have found historically, in my many years as the Chairman of

this Sub-Committee trying to get people to come forward and participate in the Census, is that if you can do that, I think that it

would help a great deal because those folks are not afraid of the

Church. They may be afraid of City Hall, they may be afraid of

Albany, they may be afraid of Washington, but they're not afraid

of the Church, and they go there for refuge. So it's a suggestion. I

know that the Catholic Church has been doing something on it.

Mr. KOCH. It's a very good suggestion. I will tell you that because

we recognize how important the Catholic Church is, the Chairman

of our city-wide committee appointed by me is the Auxiliary Bishop

of Brooklyn. And we have had a press conference with him. But I

think I will ask the Cardinal, who is going to be on my television

show this Wednesday night at 8 o'clock, if he wouldn't consi* • at-
16

tending•Channel 5•if he would not consider attending a press

conference to do exactly that.

Mr. DYMALLY. YOU made reference to the families who are

crowded in the apartments. What is your estimate, off the top of

your head, for the undocumented population in the city?

Mr. KOCH. Well, we heretofore have used a figure of 750,000 in

the last census. That was the figure that we used. I would find it

difficult to tell you how many of the 750,000 are in fact undocumented•that was the undercount figure that we used•or how

many of them would fit into this group of people who are legally

here but doubled up and for other reasons don't want to make

known their presence.

But my own judgment is that it must exceed the 524,000 figure

that the Census Bureau has used, as those who were undercounted.

That's their figure, not my figure. So it's got to be higher.

Mr. DYMALLY. YOU have a close working relationship between

the New York and California delegations. It troubled me in 1980

when we lost some seats here, and it's troubling again to hear my

friend, Mr. Garcia, predict a possible loss.

What suggestions ought we take to the Congress to get some assurance that this undercount will be correct?

Mr. KOCH. There's only one. There's only one thing that will deal

with this undercount. And the Congress can mandate it. And that

is to mandate a statistical adjustment that the Census Bureau has

said is possible but has said it will not necessarily do. You should

mandate it. If you did that, you will have accomplished all that

this Committee can and should do on that subject.

Mr. DYMALLY. One final question, sort of a human interest policy

question. Do you think these hearings•as a veteran of these hearings•are important in terms of influencing public policy?

Mr. KOCH. There's no question that hearings of this kind have

impact on the Congress itself, undoubtedly. The public is interested

in this. But it also impacts on the Census Department.

I believe that if you brought them in or maybe they're going to

be here, and you pound them in a rational way, as the Committee

would, and demand of them that they agree to use the statistical

adjustment, you might then not need to go to a legislative route.

Mr. DYMALLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. GARCIA. Mr. Schumer.

Mr. SCHUMER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to follow

up on that question. Being a veteran of Congress. I'm sure you

know, Mr. Mayor, that people would ask whether they benefit from

including the undercount. That would probably determine the way

they voted on such an issue. My guess is that the number of states

that would benefit wouldn't have a majority of votes in the House

or the Senate, certainly in the Senate.

They admitted that we were shortchanged 524,000 people, an

enormous number. Is there any way, any legal recourse that the

city might take in advance to help move us along?

I think we should try it congressionally, and of course you know

there are many ways to "skin a cat," possibly through appropriations bills.

Mr. KOCH. I turn to the Corporation Counsel on that.
17

Mr. ZIMROTH. I'm sure you are aware, or if you're not you should

be, that we have a lawsuit still pending on the basis of the 1980

census, and we have•and that case is still pending here in the

United States District Court in the Southern District and we're

awaiting a decision.

Mr. SCHUMER. I understand that. I'm just concerned that at the

rate that case has moved along and will go through the appeal,

perhaps in a separate suit aimed at the 1990 census, the courts

might, because of the deadline, move it along more quickly.

Mr. ZIMROTH. I can tell you that I have asked my staff to look

into the possibility of bringing a lawsuit in advance.

One or the difficulties, however, is that the Census Department

has not committed itself to using statistical adjustment or to not

using it. It's pretty hard to go to court and say that•maybe that's

the reason they're not committing themselves; I don't know•but to

go to court and say that, to force the court to tell them to do something when they could come back and say well, we haven't decided

not to do it yet. But we are definitely looking into that.

Mr. SCHUMER. Keeping in mind the 1980 experience, a lengthy

suit, and their lack of support for this in 1980, I think that court

might find that plea a little hollow.

Mr. ZIMROTH. I agree with you and as I said, we are looking into

that. I should also say, just on a related subject, that we're also

looking into the possibility of lawsuits concerning some of the regulations that the INS has put out that we think may or may not

follow the Congressional mandate.

Mr. SCHUMER. I have one other question on the legal ramifications. The method that the Census uses seems to engender an undercount. The fact that they rely on a mail survey and then follow

it up door to door will inevitably result in an undercount in the

apartments and with the undocumented aliens. Because of the 1982

data, even if every person eligible for amnesty receives it, we would

still have hundreds of thousands of undocumented persons in the

city.

We will try in the Congress to do what we can to change their

methodology. But they're pretty stuck in the mud. Right now it's a

Republican Administration that I don't think is sympathetic to

Democratic-oriented urban areas. Is it possible to file any kind of

suit over methodology, given the experience in 1980?

Mr. ZIMROTH. I don't know the answer to that but I will tell you

that we will look into that.

I would say that the issue in a way, it's more serious than

simply•well, it's not simply undercounting. It's the fact that

urban areas, like New York and other urban areas, are disproportionately undercounted. And that's really the problem. If everybody were undercounted the same proportion, it wouldn't make

any difference.

Mr. SCHUMER. But as I understand it, New York's undercount

was by far the most disproportionate, even given our large population.

Mr. KOCH. And another problem is that some of the programs

that I understand are going to be used, the outreach programs,

which on the surface of it may look like they're a good idea, may in

fact increase the disproportionality of the undercount.
18

Mr. ZIMROTH. But it is a fact that L.A. suffered the same discrimination that we suffered, proportionately.

Mr. SCHUMER. In conclusion I urge that every legal avenue

aimed at 1990-92 be explored.

Thank you.

Mr. GARCIA. Congressman Towns.

Mr. TOWNS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Just in case there's not statistical adjustment and the legal route

fails, have you thought about what we might be able to do to increase the possibility that they count the homeless?

Mr. KOCH. Well, we have a reasonably good count on the homeless. There are two homeless populations.

One population would be the singles, and the other would be the

families. There are no families out on the street. We know where

every family is. They are in our shelters, our hotels. There are

4,800 of them, roughly 18,000 people, making up family units. They

are counted. There's no problem about that. We know where they

are.

As it relates to the single homeless, there will be some dispute as

to how many are on the streets and how many are in our shelters.

If counting is done during the summer, there will be many, many

more out on the streets than in our shelters. But at the height of

winter, when we require, under an order that I issued, that any

homeless person who is seen on the street, where a cop thinks that

that individual is homeless and the temperature is 32 degrees,

which is freezing, there's an instruction. The cop must stop the

person and ask them where they're going to sleep that night. If the

cop is satisfied that they have a warm place, that's okay. Or if the

cop is satisfied that they can make a mental judgment that is acceptable as an adult, that's okay, too. But if the cop believes that

person cannot make such an informed judgment, then he must call

the Sergeant at the precinct; the Sergeant comes; if the two of

them agree that this person is mentally incompetent, they take the

person against his will, if he doesn't want to go to a shelter. If he

wants to go, we take him, in our own vans, to a shelter, voluntarily. If he doesn't want to go, he's taken to an emergency room at a

hospital where he's examined by a doctor. And the doctor decides

whether he's incompetent. So you see, these are all the civil liberty

protections to make sure we're not dragging people off the street,

who even though it's foolish for them to be there, have a right

under our law to kill themselves if they want to. That's the law.

Now, at the high, this is my recollection now•14 people were

taken in off the streets in any one night, involuntarily. I think 70

were taken voluntarily. They stopped them and they brought them

in. So that, whether it's hundreds or a couple of thousand who are

not in our shelters, it's a very confined figure. We know who those

people are.

Mr. TOWNS. Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor.

Let me ask you one other question, along those lines. If at the

same time the Census Bureau is operating and of course we have,

as you point out, in terms of the amount of undocumented aliens,

and thinking in terms of now the new immigration bill•if all

these things are moving at the same time, and when somebody

knocks on somebody's door, there's no way they're going to open it.
19

They're not going to answer it. I think that these are problems that

I'm very concerned about, especially here in New York City. Knowing that you served in that body down in Washington for a number

of years, do you have any ideas or suggestions that I could take

back to that group? Maybe I might even get angry enough to tell

them you told me to say it.

Mr. KOCH. On the way that they should approach people in

knocking on doors?

Mr. TOWNS. Yes.

Mr. KOCH. Well, they have to train people. They have to use

local community people. They should provide•and I don't know

that they're not already•but if they're not, they should provide in

many areas of this town where they're going into areas that they

are uncomfortable in terms of physical safety, they should send two

people to do the job. And that's the only way it can be done. And it

cannot be done on a phone survey, because lots of people don't

have phones.

Mr. TOWNS. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Mr. GARCIA. Mr. Owens.

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Mayor, continuing in the same vein that Mr.

Towns was, I think you're to be congratulated for the city having

made it clear that where vital city services are concerned, they

would be made available to undocumented aliens without those

aliens having to worry about them being turned in to INS. Hospitals, et cetera, would be made available.

What data do we have; has any data been generated, without infringing upon the privacy of individuals, or keeping a record of individuals, do we have any indication of what percentage of the

people are served at city hospitals, or of the homeless

Mr. KOCH. Who are undocumented aliens?

Mr. OWENS. Yes. Any data?

Mr. KOCH. I don't know. I'll have to get that for you. But I would

suspect that that material is not available, because we go out of

our way not to take, not to generate information that would adversely impact the confidentiality of these individuals. So we have

said to people, we have posted in our subways and elsewhere that

say, send your kid to school. Whether you got here legally or illegally, we're not interested, in our schools, as to how you got here.

If you need medical care, come to our municipal hospitals if you

can't afford a private doctor and we are not interested in how you

got into the city; we're only interested in providing care.

So while there may be such information available, I think it's

hardly likely it would be more than a guess because we go out of

our way not to secure that kind of information.

Mr. OWENS. Well, we go out of our way to protect the privacy of

those individuals and not to indicate who they are individually.

But certain people turn up in the school system and don't have addresses in the U.S. in terms of where they were born, et cetera. No

records are kept?

Mr. KOCH. I don't know. I will find out. But my gut reaction is

that we go out of our way not to accumulate information that•the

problem with accumulating information, no matter what you tell

people, that it's going to be private, is A, they don't believe you;

and B, generally speaking, in some cases, they re right, that there
20

is no way of guaranteeing absolute privacy in a whole host of

areas, try as you might, unless you set up super-secret, confidential

banks which obviously you do in many cases, and even there, somebody is able on occasion to leak it. So people are very suspicious.

And therefore, the rule I think probably is, and I'm going to look

and see if we have that information, is that if you don't need this

information, why do you ask for it?

Mr. OWENS. NO, I certainly don't want to

Mr. KOCH. I don't mean you're asking for it.

Mr. OWENS [continuing]. Encourage a system that might be punitive in any way. I just thought maybe they had•inevitably they

say things you pick up which might be useful

Mr. KOCH. Fritz has the

Mr. SCHWARZ. We won a case against the Federal Government

on our entitlement to be reimbursed under Medicaid for the care of

undocumented aliens in the city hospitals and in connection with

that case, did develop some data on a sort of gross basis.

Mr. KOCH. We'll get it for you. Whatever we have.

Mr. SCHWARZ. YOU could get it from Peter's office.

Mr. KOCH. We will get that for you.

Mr. OWENS. I would think it would be very useful in your court

case.

No further questions.

Mr. GARCIA. Mr. Mayor, thank you very much.

Mr. KOCH. Thank you.

Mr. GARCIA. Assemblyman Angelo Del Toro, Chairman of the Reapportionment Committee in the New York State Legislature, New

York State Assembly, Mr. Cesar Perales, Commissioner of the New

York State Department of Social Services and Mr. F.A.O. Schwarz

from the law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore.

Very few people know what F.A.O. stands for, except me. Frederick August Otto Schwarz. That was once the $64 question.

Mr. SCHWARZ. I hope you won the $64.

Assemblyman Del Toro, why don't you start first? You heard the

Chairman when he opened up stating the five-minute rule, so that

we can have an opportunity to ask you questions.

TESTIMONY OF HON. ANGELO DEL TORO, ASSEMBLYMAN, NEW

YORK STATE LEGISLATURE, CO-CHAIRMAN, NEW YORK STATE

LEGISLATIVE TASK FORCE ON DEMOGRAPHIC RESEARCH AND

REAPPORTIONMENT

Mr. DEL TORO. I want to thank the Committee. I did file a written statement with the Committee that I'm sure you have a copy

of.

Mr. GARCIA. What we'll do, Angelo, is submit your entire statement for the record.

Mr. DEL TORO. Sure. Just on this question about adjustments, by

the Census Bureau. We've taken the position at the Task Force and

recommended to the Assembly to take a position that if the Census

Bureau is going to do an adjustment, that it should be done prior

to certification of the Census. Any certification, any adjustments

after would really cause a lot of havoc in the reapportionment

process, because it would mean that lines would have to be redone
21

again. And I think that's a very important point to remember. We

try to institutionalize it prior to that certification going to the

President on January 1, 1991.

Another point I want to bring up that's not in the written statement is that I think it would behoove the Congress and the State

Legislatures both here in New York and nationally to set up a liaison both on reapportionment and undercount, some sort of advisory committee structure.

I know this weekend the National Conference of State Legislators in Denver is having a weekend conference on reapportionment, and really, reapportionment is based so much on the Census

that I think it just behooves both bodies to work together, both

groups of people, somehow to do that.

New York State's interest in this census was very well stated by

the Mayor. Besides the loss of political representation, we feel that

millions of dollars were lost in this state based on formulas that

came down.

And I'd like to highlight two problems in the written statement

that I think are very important. We do now have the SimpsonRodino bill. It is our hope that a lot of people will take the benefits

of that bill and start the process of legalizing both their status and

hopefully even becoming American citizens, and sharing in this

great democracy and becoming full partners.

But by 1990, the amnesty period will be over. And because of the

severe penalties in that bill•deportation, employer sanctions•I

think that that bill is going to have a chilling effect, a very serious

chilling effect, on the Census, because any undocumented person

who still remains in this country and wasn't able to take advantage of the Simpson-Rodino bill, will be even less likely now to

want to participate with the government, in any form, whether it

be Customs or state government or city government. Because they

really will go underground in my opinion, just to avoid a possible

deportation order, and certainly employers are going to be very

leery of hiring these people.

So I think that the Simpson-Rodino bill will hurt the Census

count very much in 1991, after the amnesty period is over. I think

that we really have to redress this and try to get this core group of

people who will even have a greater incentive to remain underground, so to speak, instead of coming forth.

The Census Bureau does a good job in publicizing that the

Census is going on and asking people to cooperate.

I think it's important that another Federal agency not do any

highly publicized raids on undocumented aliens during that period.

In 1980 it's my understanding that the Immigration and Naturalization Service in San Antonio, very public, very outlandishly, went

in and did raids in certain barrios of San Antonio. I think that had

to have a chilling effect. No matter how much the Census tells

people that the census data is confidential, if INS is going to be

very aggressive during this period, I think it's just going to kill any

chance of getting people to cooperate with the census. And I think

it's something that really has to be redressed. I think that we

should have a moratorium on INS activities from 1989 until after

the census is completed in January 1, 1991, because they can really

do a lot of harm and destroy the publicity campaign. You're not
22

going to believe that the data that's being collected is confidential

if the same people who wear a federal uniform, or who look like

the census people, in some cases, and wear a federal uniform, are

out there locking people up and trying to deport you. I just don't

see how you get people to cooperate with the census under those

circumstances.

So I think it's very important that something be done to sort of

chill out the Immigration and Naturalization Service during this

period.

I also think that one way I think of helping to count the undocumented would be to hire undocumented people. People who are familiar with that community I think would have a better chance to

go in there and get people to cooperate.

Of course, identifying such people might be difficult. But I think

if you start working now, you could come up with a program, and

try to get their input, and contact other organizations that are

dealing with the undocumented now, and working with them.

There are a few groups. In New York City we have a few groups

already, both voluntary, CVO-type groups, and the Catholic Church

is very active. I understand the Archdiocese of New York has set

up a committee in each church to work with the undocumented,

where the priests and whatever personnel they have in each parish

help. There's sort of a committee to try to get people to apply for

benefits under Simpson-Rodino.

So that would be a good source to go after.

And Bob's suggestion of a press conference with the Mayor and

the Cardinal is a very good idea, and other religious leaders.

You have my statement. If there are any questions, I'll be glad to

answer.

[Assemblyman Del Toro's written statement follows:]
23

STATEMENT OF

HON. ANGELO DEL TOEO

CO-CHAIRMAN

NEW YORK STATE LEGISLATIVE TASK FORCE

ON DEMOGRAPHIC RESEARCH AND REAPPORTIONMENT

THE IMPACT OF THE LEGALIZATION PROCESS ON THE COUNTING OF

UNDOCUMENTED ALIENS IN THE 1990 CENSUS

BEFORE THE

HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE ON CENSUS AND POPULATION

AND

THE SENATE SUBCOMMITTEE ON

FEDERAL SERVICES, POST OFFICE AND CIVIL SERVICE

JUNE 1, 1987
24

,mottt Chairman Pryor, Chairman Dyaally, members of tht Senate

Subcommittee on Federal Service*, Post Office and Civil

Service and the House Subcommittee on Census and Population,

I . would like to thank you for this opportunity to express

the views of -the New York State Legislative Task Force on

Demographic - Research and Reapportionment on the impact of

the legalisation process on the counting of undocumented

aliens in the 1990 census.

The New York State Legislature takes great interest in

both the 1990 census and the implementation of the

Simpson-Rodino Bill. During the 1960 census, New York, as

one of the states with the largest number of

hard-to-enumerate inhabitants, was particularly hard-hit by

the census undercount. The resultant loss of federal

dollars and diminished voice in Congress is something we do

not wish to repeat in the next decade.

New York also has a large share of the nation's

undocumented aliens; the Legislature would like to see all

those individuals who are eligible to apply for citisenship

under the Simpson-Rodino Bill to do so. To this end, the

Speaker of the New York Assembly, Hel Miller, has formed a

fourteen-member "Task Force on New Americans" chaired by

Assemblyman Jose Rivera. This Task Force's prime objective

is to assist and encourage the maximum number of eligible

immigrants to become American citizens.
25

Page 2

The number of undocumented alien* residing in this

country on April 1, 1990•the day that all inhabitants of

our nation will . complete and return the 1990 census

.questionnaire•is difficult to determine, especially if the

Simpson-Rodino Bill has been fully implemented:

DHany of those individuals who were undocumented

aliens during the last census, and who have remained in this

country until 1990, will hopefully have begun the

legalization process and will no longer be undocumented.

Although the Census Bureau has made estiaates of the number

of these inhabitants•based on the count of aliens in the

1980 census•there are no hard figures, and we have no way

of knowing how many will actually come forward. The

financial burden in applying for permanent residence status

and lingering fears of deportation may deter many. The

Census Bureau should create educational materials to be

distributed to both those who take advantage of

Simpson-Rodino and those who don't.

2)if sanctions against employers who hire aliens

ineligible to work take full force and are effective, many

of these aliens will be forced to leave this country.

Again, there are no reliable data to estimate how many will

be affected. The effectiveness of fines against employers

will be the prime determinant of how many undocumented

remain by 1990.
26

Those who have begun legalisation by ctniui day should

be more•likely to complete the census questionnaire. The

major factors inhibiting non-citisens froi doing so•fear of

government, "language barriers, and lack of knowldege about

the benefits of the census should have been allayed by this.

time. However; counting aliens who remain undocumented by

1990 will be even more difficult; the factors mentioned

above will combine with sanctions against employers to

produce an even lower response rate.

To avoid this, we encourage the Census Bureau to target

this group in order to assure them that the information

collected in the census is confidential and that it is not

shared with government agencies, such as the Immigration and

Naturalisation Service, we also urge the INS to refrain

from any actions during the time of the pre-tests, dress

rehersal, and 1990 census itself. Even the most effective

census publicity will be made useless if this kind of

coincidence occurs.

Assuming that many aliens do participate in the census,

another issue related to data tabulation will probably be

raised. The increased numbers of non-citisens may bring

calls for them not to be included in census counts. As you

well know, the census's Constitutional mandate calls for the

count of "the whole number of free persons." New York

State's Constitution has a provision for the State to

conduct an enumeration if the federal census excludes

aliens. He urge Congress and the Census Bureau to withstand

calls to eliminate non-citisens from the count.

Thank you again for this opportunity to express the

Task force's views.
27

Mr. GARCIA. If you would just hold on, now, I'd like Mr. Schwarz

to make his five-minute presentation.

TESTIMONY OF FREDERICK A.O. SCHWARTZ, ESQUIRE, CRAVATH,

SWAINE & MOORE LAW OFFICES, AND BOARD MEMBER, NAACP

LEGAL DEFENSE FUND

Mr. SCHWARZ. I'm here in two capacities. One, as counsel for the

city, former Corporation Counsel, I brought the case. Now, my firm

is still handling the case.

Secondly, as a Board Member of the N.A.A.C.P. Legal Defense

Fund, which expresses its interest in this issue.

Let me briefly state the problem. Because it's not simply a problem of New York City and Los Angeles. It's a national problem

which has to be dealt with nationally.

The disproportionate undercount affects lots of people•blacks,

hispanics, aliens•both regular aliens and undocumented aliens•

poor people in general, residents of high-crime urban areas, persons with unconventional living arrangements, like people who are

doubled up, and persons whose English skills, whose literacy skills,

are weak or nonexistent.

Every one of those classes of persons tends to be disproportionately under-counted. And they tend to live, disproportionately, in

areas like New York and Los Angeles.

The disproportionate undercount in our cities will, without question, occur again in 1990. No matter what is done, with respect to

coverage improvement. And the people here from the Census

Bureau are very sincere. They're hard working, they will spend

money, they will try, but no matter what is done, the disproportionate element of the undercount will not decrease, and if anything perhaps will increase. Because whatever is done in terms of

saying get out and come in and let yourself be counted, is naturally

going to reach the people whose literacy skills, for example, are

stronger rather than weaker.

So even if they cut the numbers a little bit, they're not going to

reduce the disproportionality.

And we were undercounted here in New York City by equal to

the population of Denver and other huge cities.

I'd like to place it, briefly, in a constitutional context, and put

this argument about the Census undercount in terms of the great

sweep of American constitutional history which has been moving

toward democracy, from the original Constitution, which for all its

high ideals, gave the vote only to propertied white males, to today,

where everybody theoretically has the vote. But those who are

weakest among us are still undercounted, so their representation is

not equal to their actual population.

As you know, under the original Constitution, blacks were counted as three-fifths of a person, officially in the Constitution they

were counted as three-fifths of a person.

Today, unofficially, because of the Census undercount, blacks in

our central cities are counted as about four-fifths of a person, and

the hispanics, it's the same degree of undercount.

Until we have a statistical adjustment, we will not have democratic equality. So for the same reasons as we fought the Revolu-
28

tion to overcome taxation without representation, for the same reasons as we fought the Civil War to give blacks the right to vote and

the theoretical right to be counted as one person, for the same reasons as we passed the Constitutional Amendment to give women

the right to vote, for the same reasons as in the 1960s the Supreme

Court addressed the issue of one person, one vote and held that

malapportionment was unconstitutional, the undercount, the systemic undercount must be addressed.

My prediction is, it will not be addressed by the Census Bureau.

They keep saying maybe yes, maybe no, we think we're inching up

to it. Let's hope they do. They have the capacity to do it.

But it will take a press from the Congress. And in response to

Congressman Schumer's observation, yes, of course, some people

win and some people lose. But if you phrase the issue in terms of

realization of our democratic ideals and if yea approach the problem as the Assemblyman said, before the actual count is announced, so you can't know quite as precisely who will win and

who will lose. And having in mind the ideal of full democracy, I

believe that you people in the Congress can take steps that will

move this along.

We're going to continue with our lawsuit. Peter Zimisth the

"new corporation councel, will try and be as innovative as he can

with some new lawsuits. And of course the courts are important.

But Congress has the power, and I would urge at least your committee to start and report out a bill. I had breakfast with the

Chairman, and we're available to work with you on any form of

legislation and to do anything else we can.

Thank you.

Mr. GARCIA. Just let me say two or three things. We're not as

concerned with the State Legislature, in terms of the loss of seats,

because constitutionally it's locked into 150 seats in the assembly,

and the Senate can fluctuate any way they want, so there'd be no

loss of seats. There may be a shifting of seats.

Mr. SCHWARZ. The census undercount causes a shifting from

urban to non-urban.

Mr. GARCIA. But I don't think that that's a problem for New

York, in view of the fact that we have indeed gained, slightly, in

population, and the shift has been more upstate that it has been in

the urban center.

The second part is that let's say for example, Peter, who is our

good friend, who is on the next panel, decides with the hierarchy at

the Bureau of the Census, okay, New York, you got 550,000 undercount. You know what? You're entitled to the 550. Where do we

put it? Where do those 550,000 people actually reside?

Mr. SCHWARZ. They have the capacity to adjust, perhaps not

down to the block level, but down to the, to districts that are quite

small.

One has to admit that any adjustment by definition is imperfect.

The question, Congressman, is whether the adjustment would be

better than the unadjusted head count. And I think the answer is

clearly yes.

The second question is, are the American people, are the American people willing to accept the use of statistics to affect basic political rights?
29

Well, of course, today, we're so used to statistics. Every one of

you makes decisions, makes vital decisions right in your business,

depending upon samples. I mean, you decide whether or not to run

and where to run or what to emphasize based on statistical samples. So the American public would not have the same sort of problem with the use of science that they might have had even 30 years

ago.

Mr. GARCIA. See, I understand the 550 as it relates to the Mayor

of the City. We had a problem with the different classifications for

the City of Memphis. By a thousand or two, they went into a different classification, so they came under a different funding pattern.

So we understand that. We understand that municipally. There's

no problem with that.

The problem I have is, to give you an example, the towns directional seat. There was a big schism between Puerto Ricans and

blacks in terms of where did the numbers fall and who got what.

And in order to avoid that schism, when the people in the state legislatures start to reapportion, everybody needs to be treated fairly,

to assure all the numbers fall where they should.

We need to say not just here are the numbers, but where are the

numbers and what do the numbers look like, ethnically and racially, so that we have some idea.

Because the one thing you don't want to create is a situation

where there is schism. What you want to do is try and create a situation where in fact there is harmony and you can work out the

figures and statistics in Albany.

Mr. SCHWARZ. Right. I mean, certainly the expertise in implementing adjustment should be the Bureau of the Census' expertise.

They are very, very good people in that office, one of whom is here.

They're very good people.

And I think the American public has confidence in them.

But the issue of schism cannot now be avoided any longer. Because once the undercount has become a public issue, as it now

has, the issue of schism already exists. Blacks know, and increasingly will know, that because they are undercounted they lose representation.

Hispanics know, and increasingly will know, that because they

are undercounted, they lose representation.

So we have this national problem. I think their concerns are

right on target. But they can t, they no longer can just be wished

away. They're here. We have to deal with it and we have to try

and see, can we make it a little better than it now is.

Mr. HOPPY. I am Louis Hoppy, Co-Executive Director of Angelo's

Task Force.

I was asking what happens on your question, Bob. And unless

the adjustment is brought down to the block level, we cannot use

that adjustment to reapportion. That's the answer.

But there's another problem, that there's certain groups that are

probably getting set to challenge the Census Bureau, in the counting of non-citizens. The Constitution says that there shall be a

census every ten years to count the whole number of free persons

residing within a state. And I think there will be groups who will

challenge the Census Bureau. The Census Bureau until this date

has always counted non-resident•non-citizens in its numbers. And

77-631 0-87
30

there will be a challenge, legal challenges to that, and saying that

they only should be counting citizens.

The New York State Constitution provides in the state, if that

happens, the federal government only decides to count citizens

within a state, that we will count non- citizens.

But I think Congress, the committee, should back up the Census

Bureau in its efforts to ensure that everyone who is residing in this

country is counted.

Mr. GARCIA. The Constitution states every person. It doesn't say

whether the person is a citizen or a non- citizen. And so when you

talk about that you just talk about people who are here.

Mr. HOPPY. But there are court cases.

Mr. SCHWARZ. I think that's how I got into this business in 1980,

and we won the argument based from what Congressman Garcia

said before a three-judge district court in Washington, D.C.

Mr. DYMALLY. The Assemblyman is correct. There is legislation

in the Senate, U.S. Senate, to do exactly what he says. And they

testified before the subcommittee that they feel very strongly about

it.

Question, Mr. Schwartz. You talk about the urban undercount,

its effect on minorities. Is there a rural undercount?

Mr. SCHWARZ. Yes, there is. I'm glad that you mentioned that,

because it's so easy, coming from the city and I guess all of you

come from this city or another one. There is a rural undercount

also. Poor people. Poor people tend to be undercounted, for obvious

reasons. It comes in the mail. They may not have a mailing address. They may not read well.

They can't find you when they come and check up on you. You

may live in an unconventional place. There may be, on a farm, instead of what looks like one house, there may be another little,

small shack somewhere.

Mr. DYMALLY. I was about to say to my friend, Mr. Schumer,

that perhaps we could develop a coalition with our friends in the

South and say yes, you're affected, too, and some of our conservative friends in the Northwest and the Midwest, you're affected, too.

This is going to help you. This is not just a Democratic issue.

Mr. SCHWARTZ. And maybe one or two people would actually be

moved by the principle of the thing. Might tip it over.

Mr. DYMALLY. I have a question for the Assemblyman. I think

it's safe to say that New York and California have some progressive legislatures. But even at that, I don't know that in the California legislature we took an active part in the Census. And it seems

to me, after having breakfast with Mr. Schwartz this morning, that

we need to get the legislatures involved in this process of public relations, or putting pressure on their delegations to see that the

Census Bureau does some of the things we advocate here this

morning.

And so I just sent another note to the staff to arrange a meeting

with the Conference of State Legislators, to discuss this with them

and maybe have a seminar on it.

Mr. DEL TORO. First of all, the Speaker of the New York State

Assembly, Mel Miller, has appointed a task force on New Americans, first of all, to try to get and encourage people to participate

in the Simpson-Rodino bill, those that have, and use our network of
31

district offices•New York State has 150 district offices•to try to

service people.

The Speaker has also directed me to develop a program to use

state resources to augment both in publicity and using state agencies, to participate with the Census Bureau in developing as complete a list as possible with addresses and in whatever way possible.

We are also having conversations with the Census Bureau about

doing a conference for the state legislature in Albany for the members of the legislature and their staffs, so that we get out as much

information as possible.

We're committed in the New York State Assembly. Our Speaker

had my job prior to this and he understands the importance of an

accurate census count in developing the reapportionment plan,

both for the State legislature and for the Congressmen. And we're

going to have some state resources in New York State to do that.

Mr. GARCIA. Congressman Schumer.

Mr. SCHUMER. I think the suggestions made by Assemblyman Del

Toro and Mr. Schwarz are excellent. I think we should try to implement some of those at the INS and other levels.

I just have a question I'd like to ask both of you, who know more

about the census than I. I find it amazing that we're in a situation

where the Census Bureau has admitted there's been a 524,000 undercount in New York and yet our population figures have not

been adjusted to that figure. Let's forget the Congressional reapportionment. It hasn't been adjusted in any way. Is that accurate?

Mr. SCHWARZ. It is accurate that it has not been adjusted.

Mr. SCHUMER. HOW does one live with that anomaly?

Mr. SCHWARZ. Some of their mid-censal figures do provide a

measure of adjustment. And Peter Bounpane could give you more

on that.

But it affects everything. It affects•business people have to

make judgments about what the population is. Not for profit organizations. At breakfast this morning, David Jones was saying, he

estimates of the Brooklyn population that is below the poverty line,

and he has to rely on the Census figures. And yet he knows they're

wrong.

Mr. SCHUMER. I have one question that should go to the Census

representative: but as I told the Chairman I probably will have to

leave before he gets here•are they going to count the undercount

done in 1980 somehow? Is the Census Bureau going to implement

the 1980 undercount into their methods? Not the 1990 undercount

but somehow when they do counting are they going to recognize

that maybe we did suffer a big undercount and change their methodology?

Ms. SCHWARZ. It's been the same every decennial census. The

measure which has been most consistent for the longest period of

time because apparently it's easiest to develop is the difference between blacks and whites.

And you've had that same disproportion for as long as they've

been measuring it and I think it goes back to 1930.

Mr. SCHUMER. And they don't adjust it?

Mr. SCHWARZ. NO. That's the problem.
32

Mr. SCHUMER. Do they accept that racial distinction is what most

measures the undercount?

Mr. SCHWARZ. It happens that is statistically easier to get your

hands around. They also adjudge that Hispanics are about the

same.

Yes, they do accept that.

Mr. DEL TORO. AS a Hispanic, I'm very concerned about the way

they phrase the Hispanic ethnic question. It's question number 7, it

comes three questions after the question on race and it says something to the effect is your background Spanish or Hispanic.

Now, Spanish to me means you come from Spain. And I don't

come from Spain. My family comes from Puerto Rico, which is different. I don't identify as being a Spanish person. I identify as

being Puerto Rican. And I'm sure people from Mexico identify as

being Mexican or Santo Domingo or all the other countries. The

link back to Spain is very tenuous at best.

And by the way, the other thing that's really capricious in that

anomaly you're talking about is that you're punishing the poor, because the poor get undercounted the most and therefore they lose

funding for services they need the most such as housing, educational services, health services. So they're getting double hit here.

Mr. SCHUMER. Yes. I look at the Question Number 4 on the

Census questionnaire and they list Chinese, Phillipino, Korean, Vietnamese, Hawaiian, Guamanian•are those any more racial distinctions than Hispanic? Is there a distinction between Korean and

Chinese?

I don't understand. I'm just making this observation.

Mr. DEL TORO. In my assembly district, they have a great little

computer that I'll show you that can pull out by ZIP code the

ethnic and the racial data. I did this at one of their conferences.

And ZIP Code 10029, which is a black and Puerto Rican ZIP code,

the three racial categories that they had were black, white and

other. Other has more people, because Puerto Ricans just couldn't

fit in.

And then you look down in the Hispanic under the Hispanics

and it's very clear the Puerto Ricans were looking for a place to fit

under the racial definitions, because the "other" and the Puerto

Rican almost match up number for number. So people are having a

lot of trouble fitting in to those categories.

Mr. GARCIA. Ed Towns.

Mr. TOWNS. Just one question, Mr. Chairman, to Assemblyman

Del Toro.

What is the time period between the completion of the Census

and the certification?

Mr. DEL TORO. The Census official date is April 1, 1990. Certification takes place on January 1, 1991.

Mr. TOWNS. That's when it goes to the President.

Mr. DEL TORO. Now, I don't know when they actually complete

counting the forms. Census Bureau people could tell you that. I

don't know the precise date of that. Sometime during 1990. January 1, 1991 is when the tapes are sent to the President of the official count.
33

Mr. TOWNS. I'm just thinking in terms of the fact that if some

legal action is not taken before, you don't have much time to do

that. That's what I'm really saying.

Once it's certified, then that s it, you're locked in again.

Mr. DEL TORO. Well, also from the point of view, I think you

know New York State is on the voting rights jurisdiction. And any

other case that may arise in New York State as a result of one

man, one vote, it means that as soon as a reapportionment plan is

announced by the state legislature, you know there's going to be a

court case. And the federal courts will use the certified numbers as

of January 1, 1991.

Mr. TOWNS. Not the adjustment figures.

Mr. DEL TORO. First of all, we don't know there's going to be an

adjustment. But unless that adjustment was done prior to January

1, 1991, it could really cause a very difficult situation.

Mr. SCHWARZ. January 1, 1991 is not a constitutional date. The

Constitution requires that there be a census every ten years. That

January 1 date could be changed by 90 days, for example, if that

were going to give them the adequate time to do the adjustment,

which the Assemblyman is definitely correct, should be done before

the figures are laid out.

That is something the Congress could do to help the census

Bureau. Now, that means the states in their reapportionment, get

a little less time but they'd be working with better figures. So it is

something that you might want to explore, changing that date by

60 days, let's say.

Mr. DEL TORO. Mr. Towns certainly is correct in pointing out

there's not much time to do this in because there are three states,

one of which is our sister state just on the other side of the

Hudson, New Jersey, which by their own state constitution gives

them only nine months from the date of certification to have the

reapportionment law passed. And that is certainly not very much

time.

Mr. Chairman, so that you understand what's happened in New

York State, since the 1970 Census, going back 20 years, New York

State has lost eight Congressmen. That is equivalent to what Connecticut has as its total representation. So in essence, we've lost

the State of Connecticut from our midst.

Mr. GARCIA. Mr. Owens.

Mr. OWENS. I have no question. I just was very interested in the

formulations of Mr. Schwarz about the counting of the slaves as

three-fifths of a person, and the implications of that. I'd like to explore that further. And I don't have a copy of your testimony.

Mr. SCHWARZ. Well, actually you don't because I haven't submitted it. But I plan to submit something. I was reading from an article I'd written.

Mr. GARCIA. Chris Petersen, Immigration and Naturalization

Service, who will be speaking on behalf of Mr. Charles C. Sava, the

District Director, and Mr. Peter A. Bounpane, Assistant Director,

Demographic Census, Bureau of the Census.

So that we understand what we have done, what we're trying to

do, Ms. Petersen, is that if you would take five minutes and summarize your statement, and the same thing with you, Peter, we'd
34

appreciate it. And we'll take your entire statement into the record,

and submit it for the record.

So we would appreciate if you would be kind enough to do that.

I would appreciate if you'd also give me your official title with

the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

TESTIMONY OF CHRIS PETERSEN, ASSISTANT DISTRICT DIRECTOR, EXAMINATIONS BRANCH, NEW YORK DISTRICT, IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION SERVICE

Ms. PETERSEN. I'm the Assistant District Director of the Examinations Branch in the New York District.

Mr. GARCIA. Fine.

Ms. PETERSEN. With your permission, I would like to read the

whole statement and only take five minutes.

Mr. GARCIA. Fine.

Ms. PETERSEN. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the

Subcommittee, and thank you for the opportunity to comment on

the impact of the legalization process on the 1990 Census.

The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 can be expected to affect the taking of the 1990 Census in two principal ways.

First, assuming that no change is made in the Census Bureau

policy attempting to count, including for portionment purposes, all

resident aliens regardless of legal status•and we take no position

on that issue today•the legalization process will substantially

reduce the number of undocumented residents to be counted, and

therefore increase the overall coverage of the resident alien population in the 1990 Census.

Second, the employer sanctions provisions of the bill, in addition

to reducing the number of illegal residents present in 1990, will

tend to focus INS efforts more on employers and less on individual

aliens.

Before the bill was passed, INS enforcement strategy had already

shifted substantially away from apprehension of individuals toward

prevention of smuggling and other violations of immigration law.

To summarize the situation in 1990, both the number of illegal

residents and the visibility of the INS in the community should be

substantially reduced as a result of the 1986 legislation and the

shift in INS enforcement priorities throughout the 1980s.

INS has supported immigration reform for a number of years.

And we believe that the Immigration Reform Act of 1986 will provide strong support for our efforts to regulate the flow of immigration to the United States.

The Reform Act will also have an impact on a number of other

federal programs and activities, as illustrated by these hearings on

the impact of the legalization process on the census.

In my testimony, I will briefly describe some areas of cooperation

between INS and Census that came about during this period when

legislation was being considered, and I will present possible impacts of the legalization program on coverage in the 1990 Census.

In general, the process leading to the passage of the Reform Act

has worked to increase the coordination of the statistical activities

of the INS and the Census Bureau. INS was represented on the

Census Bureau's Interagency Task Force on Race and Ethnic
35

Origin which considered which questions to ask in these areas in

the 1990 Census.

More recently, the Commissioner of INS and the Director of the

Census Bureau met to consider ways in which the two agencies can

cooperate during the 1990 Census. In addition, INS resources have

been made available to support the Census Bureau's research program to estimate the size and growth of the undocumented population during the 1980s.

The estimated number of undocumented immigrants counted in

the 1980 Census and the estimates of growth for the period 1980 to

1983 provided valuable empirical information that improved the

chances that the reform legislation would pass.

The INS will continue to work with the Census Bureau to evaluate the demographic, social and economic impacts of the legislation.

Although the specific impacts of the legalization program on the

1990 Census are difficult to determine at this point, we are confident that the overall effect of legalization will be to increase the

coverage of the foreign-born population in the 1990 Census.

That is, coverage will be better than it would have been if the

legislation had not been enacted.

Those who moved to the U.S. permanently prior to 1982 will

hopefully be in a legal status and are likely to be relatively well

counted in the Census. In addition, most farm workers in perishable crops will be in a legal status and therefore more likely to be

counted than if they had not been legalized.

As a result of the employer sanctions component of the bill, we

expect that the undocumented population entering the U.S. between the legalization date and the Census, will be relatively

smaller than it otherwise would have been.

In addition to considerably reducing the undocumented population to be counted in the 1990 Census, the legalization program is

expected to produce detailed statistics for the formerly undocumented population who entered the U.S. just eight years prior to

the Census.

The statistics to be collected during the next year should prove to

be valuable to the Census Bureau, especially for planning programs

to improve coverage in specific geographic areas. Relative to 1980,

when little was known about the undocumented population, in

1990 we will have information on area of residence, nationality,

and other demographic characteristics of legalized aliens.

Other ways in which the legalization program might affect that

coverage in the 1990 census are even more difficult to determine,

although the effects could be favorable.

For example, legalized aliens as well as other foreign-born persons might be more willing to cooperate with census takers as a

result of what we believe will be a favorable experience with the

U.S. Government during the legalization period.

I would like to conclude by reiterating that INS will continue to

work with Census officials to improve coordination in statistical

matters. In our view, the legalization component of the 1986 Act

will lead to increased coverage of the resident alien population in

the 1990 Census.

Thank you.
36

Mr. GARCIA. Mr. Bounpane is next.

TESTIMONY OF PETER A. BOUNPANE, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR,

BUREAU OF THE CENSUS

Mr. BOUNPANE. Good morning. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

After I make a few remarks about our plans for counting undocumented immigrants in the 1990 census, I'll be glad to try and

answer some of the questions that were raised here this morning.

In 1990, we will attempt to count all residents of the United

States at Census time. The only exception would be foreign citizens

living on Embassy, Consulate or Legation grounds. And this is consistent with our practice in all censuses beginning with the first

one in 1790.

Thus, we do plan to include undocumented immigrants in the

1990 census and to include them in the apportionment counts submitted to the President.

While we plan to include them in the count, I want to emphasize

that we will make no attempt to identify undocumented immigrants individually as such in the census. Why is that?

First of all, the census is really not a good method to determine

the legal status of an individual resident. And we believe that any

attempt on our part to identify undocumented immigrants could

have a detrimental impact on the public's perception of the census

and thus, could undermine the public's willingness to participate in

the census.

As you know, the law protects the confidentiality of individual

census information, and we have an excellent record in maintaining that confidentiality. Any attempt to identify undocumented immigrants in the census could lead to confusion of our role as an enforcement agency.

However, as in previous censuses, we will include questions on

the long form questionnaire on place of birth, citizenship and year

of entry into the United States. And remember that the long form

is only asked of a sample of the population.

None of these questions will attempt to distinguish between documented and undocumented immigrants.

Now, let me just say a few words about what we think will be

the impact of the legalization process on the 1990 census.

We really can't say with certainty what the effect of this legislation will be on our attempts to count undocumented immigrants

next time. But we are assuming that the enumeration of this group

will be at least as difficult as it was in 1980.

As we have already heard this morning, undocumented immigrants are a very, very difficult group to enumerate. And I won't

go over the reasons why. People have stated them quite well.

In the 1980 census, we took special efforts to convince this group

that the census was confidential and that no harm could come to

anyone by answering the census. We counted a substantial number

of undocumented immigrants in 1980. But we suspect that the undercount rate for this group was still quite high.

Remembering that we did not identify individuals as undocumented immigrants in the census, but by using aggregate data, in-
37

eluding some data from the INS, we estimate that we counted

about 2 million undocumented immigrants in the 1980 census.

And we also estimated that there were about 2.5-3 million undocumented immigrants in the United States on April 1, 1980. So

that suggests that we counted between 60 and 80 percent of that

population.

In the 1990 census, those undocumented immigrants who qualify

for amnesty under the new law may be more likely to cooperate

with the census. Even with this group, however, we are going to

make special efforts to emphasize the importance of the census and

the confidentiality of it.

However, we don't believe legalization will eliminate all fears,

and certainly will not eliminate language barriers.

Further, many undocumented immigrants here may not qualify

for amnesty and other undocumented immigrants may enter between now and 1990.

The long and short of all of this is that we are still going to need

an extensive outreach program for the 1990 census to convince

people to cooperate in the census. And we plan to do that.

I won't go over the details of our promotion plan today, Mr.

Chairman. If you wish to discuss any of them, I'll be glad to talk

about them. I will mention just one thing, and that is, we will have

extensive foreign language assistance with the next census, primarily in Spanish but also in 30 other languages.

Let me conclude just by saying that it is going to be a hard task,

and we're going to have to work together on that. But we feel that

by doing that, we will do a good job of counting the entire population come 1990.

So those are our comments on what we think the effect of the

law will be. I tried to shorten those as much as I could, and I'll be

glad to answer questions now.

[Mr. Bounpane's full statement follows:]
38

STATE* KT OF

PETER A. BOUNPANE

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR. BUREAU OF THE CENSUS

BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON CENSUS AND POPULATION

POST OFFICE AND CIVIL SERVICE COMMITTEE

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

NEW YORK, NEW YORK

JUNE 1, 1987

Thank you. Mr. Chairman, for this opportunity to brief the Subcommittee

on the impact of the legalization process on the counting of undocumented

Immigrants 1n the 1990 census.

First, I will discuss our plans to Include undocumented Immigrants 1n the

1990 census count. Second, I will address the Issue of the impact of the

legalization process on the enumeration.

Plans to Count Undocumented Immigrants

Ne will attempt to count all residents of the United States at census

time, except foreign citizens living on embassy, consulate or legation

grounds, which are not legally American soil. This Is consistent with

our practice In all censuses beginning with the first one 1n 1790. Thus,

we plan to Include undocumented Immigrants In the 1990 census and to

Include them In the apportionment counts.

While we plan to Include undocumented immigrants 1n the count, I want to

emphasize that we will make no attempt to Identify undocumented Immigrants

as such In the census. We do not have the expertise to determine the

legal status of Individual residents. And we believe that attempts on
39

2

our part to Identify undocumented Immigrants could hive • detrimental

Impact on the public's perception of the census and, thus, could undermine

the public's willingness to participate in the census.

The law protects the confidentiality of individual census Information and

we have an excellent record in maintaining that confidentiality. We do not

share Identifiable Individual census information with any other government

agency or with any person who Is not a Census Bureau employee. Despite

these assurances It would be unrealistic to expect undocumented Immigrants

to admit to the Census Bureau they were in violation of the law. Furthermore,

any attempt to Identify undocumented Immigrants In the census could lead

to confusion of our role with that of an enforcement agency.

As in previous censuses, we will Include questions on the long-form questionnaire on place of birth, citizenship, and year of entry Into the United

States. The long form 1s asked only of a sample of the population. None

of these questions will attempt to distinguish between documented and

undocumented Immigrants.

Impact of the legalization Process

Now, Mr. Chairman, I will address the Impact of the legalization process

on the 1990 census enumeration.

The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act provides amnesty for undocumented Immigrants who can prove that they have lived continuously In the

United States since January 1, 1982. The law also provides for penalties

against employers who knowingly hire undocumented Immigrants. Although
40

3

the Census Bureau h«s responsibilities under the special agricultural

workers provisions of the law, we hive no role In the legalization process.

He cannot say with certainty what the effect of this legislation will be

on our attempts to count undocumented Immigrants 1n the 1990 census.

But we are assuming that the enumeration of this group will be at least

as difficult as In 1980 and we are designing procedures to deal with

this challenge.

Undocumented Immigrants are a very difficult group to enumerate. They

fear apprehension by the Emigration and Naturalization Service (INS),

they do not trust *the Government," many have literacy problems, and they

come from many different parts of the world and speak many different

languages. In 1980, we took special steps to convince this group that

the census Is confidential and that no harm could came to anyone by

answering the census. We obtained testimonials and support from community

leaders and celebrities who encouraged undocumented Immigrants to answer

the census. Some clergy encouraged their parishioners, many of whom may •» '

f

have been undocumented immigrants, to answer the census. He also provided

census materials 1n languages other than English 1n the 1980 census to

assist or encourage their participation. *

Me successfully convinced the INS to curtail Its law enforcement activities

around Census Day 1n 1980 1n most areas where there were large numbers of

undocumented Immigrants. This was necessary because INS arrests around

census time could have been perceived as a cooperative effort between INS

•nd the Census Bureau. He have been Informed that the INS Is now operating

with a different enforcement policy; that Is. that the INS Is not conducting
41

4

residential sweeps now and does not expect to In 1990. Therefore, we do

not plan at this time to seek a curtailment of INS activities. If current

IKS policy changes, we will reexamlne this Issue.

Me counted a substantial number of undocumented Immigrants In 1980, but we

suspect the undercount rate for this group was still quite high. He did

not Identify Individuals as undocumented Immigrants 1n the census. But,

using aggregate data, we have estimated that we counted about 2 million

undocumented Immigrants. He also estimate that there were about 2.5 million

to 3.5 million undocumented Immigrants In this country on April 1, 1980; thus

these estimates suggest that we counted between 60 and 80 percent of this

population.

Those undocumented Immigrants who qualify for amnesty under the new law

•ay be more likely to cooperate with the census In 1990 because they will

be legal residents. (He cannot estimate how many undocumented Immigrants

will qualify for amnesty.) Even with this group, however, we must make

special efforts to emphasize the Importance of the census and the confidentiality of census data. Legalization itself will not eliminate language

barriers, so we are building Into the census special procedures to deal with

language needs.

Although we have no way to establish the numbers, many undocumented

immigrants here now may not qualify for amnesty and other undocumented

Immigrants may enter the country between now and 1990. So there will

be an unknown number of undocumented Imnlgrants living In the United States

In 1990 and we again will face the challenge of counting this population.
42

s

The Strict employer sanctions provisions of the new UM My drive undocumented Iswlgrants even further underground. They My be even less likely

to be aware of the census end its Importance end sight be even more

difficult to count in 1990.

Thus, even with the aeinesty end legalization program for undocumented

Immigrants, we plan to intensify our outreach efforts to those who will

remain undocumented. (The outreach efforts described below are designed

to reach other populations, as well, such as documented itnlgrants, naturalized citizens, and so on.) We are working with a broad spectrum of groups

to get advice on our plans for enumerating undocumented Immigrants. He

have discussed these and other efforts with our minority census advisory

committees; at meetings of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education

Fund, the League of United Latin American Citizens, and the National

Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials; and with Hispanic

and Asian elected officials at meetings of the National League of Cities.

He will build into our promotion campaign the messages that census Information 1s confidential and that the census does not ask a question to determine

the legal status of inmlgrants. He will air these messages In various

languages on television and radio. He will also work with national, state,

and local organizations, community groups, religious organizations, the

schools, and any other sources through which we can reach undocumented or

newly documented immigrants.

He will set up toll free numbers for telephone assistance, will include

these numbers on the questionnaires, and will publicize them widely.

In areas with a high concentration of non-English speaking Individuals,
43

6

bilingual personnel trill be used to stiff the telephone assistance lines.

He will also establish walk-In assistance centers In strategic locations

throughout the country and these will be staffed with persons Indigenous

to the neighborhoods In which the assistance centers are located.

The regular questionnaire will have a statement In Spanish on the front

describing how to obtain a Spanish language questionnaire. Persons

requiring a Spanish language questionnaire nay call the toll-free number

listed on the regular questionnaire to request one. We are designing the

questionnaire label so that the telephone assistance number will be more

prominent than In 1980. He will have questionnaire guides available In

about 30 languages for use by the census enumerators, who will also be

Indigenous to the areas In which they work.

Me plan to mall a pre-census multi-language message In selected areas

that will announce that the census questionnaire Is coming and that there

will be assistance available for those who need it to complete the questionnaire. The announcement will be In English, Spanish, and possibly other

languages not yet determined.

All of these efforts I have described above will help us count the entire

population that needs assistance or special language materials, not just

undocumented Immigrants. Through these efforts we hope to conduct as

complete a count as possible of the entire population. Including undocumented immigrants, 1n the 1990 census.

•

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my testimony.
44

Mr. GARCIA. Just let me start off by asking a question of Ms. Petersen.

There are three questions I'd like to ask.

How many persons have applied for legalization in the New York

City area?

Ms. PETERSEN. I don't have the exact number. I believe it's between five and ten thousand. I could probably get you that number

this morning before you disperse, if you would like.

Mr. GARCIA. Are you shocked by that number? Did you think it

would be more, did you think it would be less?

Ms. PETERSEN. We had hoped that it would be more than that,

and we're doing everything we can. Since November, when the bill

first passed, the District has made a very strong effort to get the

word out to the public. And we began by trying to do that through

various means.

We sponsored two programs in January which consisted of both

Congressional workers as well as voluntary agencies, a number of

organizations, private organizations. Anybody who wanted to could

attend it. We tried to invite a cross section. We did two of those.

In addition, we have had, I believe it's something over 200 speaking engagements just out of the New York District. We're trying to

encourage people to set up seminars that we can attend and provide as much information as possible.

So we would have liked it to be a higher number, but we're doing

everything we can to increase the number.

Mr. GARCIA. Well, the figures that they talk about for the City of

New York, between what we have in Brooklyn, and other areas,

and hearings that we ourselves have held over the last five or six

years, five to ten thousand people is a very, very small number. It

seems to me that the legalization program would be bursting at the

seams.

It seems, based on some information that I have here, only 27,000

aliens have applied for the legalization nationwide. And I just can't

understand it, why it's so few.

Ms. PETERSEN. I think there are a number of reasons. A number

of concerns have been expressed about the confidentiality, for example, of whether the INS will maintain confidentiality on the applications.

There is some concern about whether or not people will actually

be eligible. In addition, they are still gathering documentation.

Partially because of the short time period, from November until

implementation in May, and the Commissioner's very strong concern that we involve the public in the implementation period, getting their opinion, their feedback, their recommendations and so

forth, it was very close to May 5 before the applications themselves

were out.

We also were training the voluntary agencies and the qualified

designated entities fairly close to the end of that six-month period,

probably in the fourth or the fifth month.

So the agencies themselves are gearing up now, but weren't

ready to begin filing in that first week, for example, or the first

month.
45

Mr. GARCIA. MS. Petersen, as I was coming up, there were a

number of people waiting to get into your office downstairs. It's

very noticeable.

What are those people applying for? What are they looking for?

Ms. PETERSEN. Well, first, they're not looking for legalization, because we're not handling that in this building. But the Immigration Reform and Control Act had a number of provisions in addition to the legalization provision. It extended the registry date to

1972 and we've had a number of applications under that method.

Mr. GARCIA. By registry date, you mean that those persons who

were here prior to 1972 have no problem, they can come in and as

long as they can prove that they were here prior to 1972, and be

granted the amnesty. Is that a fair assumption on my part?

Ms. PETERSEN. That's a bit of an over simplification. If they were

here prior to 1972, there are still a few categories of excludability

that will apply to them. And they must demonstrate, just as a legalization applicant has to demonstrate, that they have in fact

been here.

Mr. GARCIA. SO it's not just clear-cut, then?

Ms. PETERSEN. NO. They can't just walk in and say I got here in

1970. They must be able to demonstrate that through some evidence showing that they've been here. And just as in legalization,

there are a number of different ways they can do that. School

records, work records, rent receipts and so forth.

Mr. GARCIA. Would you be kind enough to have your office

submit to this subcommittee the requirements for those people who

arrived prior to 1972, so that they can be included as part of this

record today that we're establishing?

Ms. PETERSEN. Yes, sir.

Mr. GARCIA. In other words, what I'm looking for are those areas

which people must respond to, those persons who were here prior

to 1972.

Ms. PETERSEN. Certainly. Just for your information, that is Section 249 of the Immigration Act. And Section 249 as it stood was

changed only insofar as the date. Prior to the Immigration Reform

and Control Act of 1986, the date was 1948. I think it was June 1,

I'm not sure, that if people could demonstrate they'd been here

I>rior to then. Now, the date has been changed. All the other reguations remain the same, and it's somewhat different from a

normal adjustment of status application. They don't need to do a

medical exam, they don't need to show they were inspected when

they entered the United States, and so forth.

So quite a few people are eligible under this.

In addition, there was section 202 of the Immigration Reform Act

which affected Cubans and Haitians and we've been running a special project at the moment, this is the fourth week of it now. We

have gotten a lot of information from people in the community,

from Mr. Helton's group, from lawyers, that there were a large

number of Haitians who would be affected by this. The Cubans not

so much because there has been other provisions in the law previously.

But they were concerned that the Haitians not be ignored in the

rush to implement legalization. So we instituted a project on the

eighth floor of this office to accept their applications and schedule
46

them for a specific time period in August. There's nothing to prevent them or preclude them from continuing to file after this special program is over. We were trying to accommodate the public

and give them a little bit of extra assistance in the beginning of

this period.

But just these two, registry and the Cuban-Haitian provision, are

some of the reasons why we have so many people outside on that

line.

Another example is with the employer sanctions provisions of

the bill. People who may have lost alien cards, specifically lost it or

had it stolen, previously might not have been so concerned. But

now because they must demonstrate that they are legally permitted to work they're more concerned about getting their applications approved, to have a new card.

Mr. GARCIA. HOW long does that process take, to get that new

card?

Ms. PETERSEN. Right now I'd say probably about 60 days.

Mr. GARCIA. 60 days?

Ms. PETERSEN. Because we don't issue the card in New York. It's

only issued in Texas. That's the only place, nationwide.

Mr. GARCIA. Any reason for that?

Ms. PETERSEN. ft had to do with security. Yes. Trying to prevent

counterfeiting of the card, which has been a major problem in the

past.

I don't know whether they're contemplating extending the

number of places or simply moving it. I know that there's some

change contemplated. I'm not exactly sure what that is.

Mr. GARCIA. Are you satisfied with the number of people who are

working downstairs, for the INS, in the region?

Ms. PETERSEN. In this district office?

Mr. GARCIA. NO. The region, yes. That bureau which you're responsible for. Are you satisfied that you have enough personnel?

Ms. PETERSEN. Yes. In the branch that I work in. In the district?

Yes, I think so. I think we were somewhat harder hit than we had

hoped to be.

One of the Commissioner's priorities was to have implementation

of the Immigration Reform Act impact as little as possible on the

actual district operations, the continuing flow of all the other applications that we administer.

To that end, when we were hiring for the legalization offices and

so forth, we tried to do outside hiring first, so that we would not

limit the number of people working in our normal operations.

We did that as much as we could. In the New York District

itself, out of approximately 120 employees, working on legalization,

roughly half came from the district. So about 60 came out of a district of between 800 and 1,000 employees.

It was, unfortunately, it had a bit more impact than we would

have liked on the downstairs, on the information function. But

they're working very hard now to fill behind those and get people

in so that there won t be a continuing impact.

Mr. GARCIA. When the immigration bill passed, what did you anticipate would be taking place in this region in terms of numbers of

people coming forward?

Was it higher, or lower?
47

Ms. PETERSEN. TO be honest, I'm not sure. I can find that out for

you and get it to you.

Mr. GARCIA. I mean, you've been with the office a while now,

have you not?

Ms. PETERSEN. Yes, sir.

Mr. GARCIA. Did you expect an avalanche of people coming forward?

Ms. PETERSEN. We're prepared to handle in three legalization offices 1,150 applicants per day, for the whole year, but we haven't

had that kind of turnout. So in the meantime we've been using the

time as productively as possible to try to get the offices established

as thoroughly as possible so that when the turnout does increase to

our expected level and perhaps even past that, we'll be able to

handle the flow.

Mr. GARCIA. If a person comes in with an application, I come in,

and I submit my application, with all the details. I've been here

since 1979 and I ve got documentation, I've got my working papers,

I've got the rent receipts, I've got my card, I have everything, and I

give you that application.

How long will it take before I'm given a card?

Ms. PETERSEN. If we interview you today and at the present time

in the three New York offices, we are interviewing whether you

walk in or it's scheduled, if we interview you today and it appears

to be a prima facie eligible application, you'll be given a card that

says that you can work. It's a small plastic card. That will be good

for a period of 60 days.

The decision will not be made in the local offices. There are four

regional centers nationwide who will be making the actual decision

on the application. And the expectation is that you'll know within

60 days.

If you are approved, you'll be notified by mail. You'll go back to

the office at which you applied. You'll return the card that said

you had permission to work only, and you'll get a temporary resident alien card.

Mr. GARCIA. Where are the four regional offices?

Ms. PETERSEN. The one in this region is very, it's in Burlington,

very near the regional office that we have.

Mr. GARCIA. Burlington, Vermont?

Ms. PETERSEN. Yes. That's where our regional office is, for the

Eastern Region.

Mr. GARCIA. We must have thousands upon thousands of undocumented people in Vermont.

Ms. PETERSEN. Well, they won't be going to that office.

Mr. GARCIA. Why Burlington, Vermont? I'm just curious. Why

not a place like New York City, where it can be expedited?

Ms. PETERSEN. I can't answer why they put the regional office

itself, but we have a service center, a regional service center up

there as well. That's separate and apart from this regional processing facility for legalization. I think one of the reasons that they set

it up up there was that the people would have the opportunity to

work up there, undisturbed by meeting the public. And it has

worked out•well, I know, it sounds funny, but it's worked out extremely effectively. We've had it in place for about five years now.
48

And the number of applications that have been adjudicated up

there has been tremendous.

Mr. GARCIA. YOU know, but the problem is, Ms. Petersen•you're

a New Yorker, I assume you are.

Ms. PETERSEN. I am.

Mr. GARCIA. And so working in your capacity as you do, you're

much more sensitive to what's happenning in a major metropolitan

area like New York, as it relates to immigration.

You take a person in Burlington, Vermont. The human factors

and the human equations don't necessarily correspond to those

that you have, in terms of your formulation in making up your

mind.

It just seems to me sort of distancing an office away from those

areas where they should be much more sensitive to what's going on

there.

I would have a problem. I didn't realize Burlington, Vermont is

where they processed these applications.

Ms. PETERSEN. But keep in mind that the interviews themselves

are conducted in the local area where the person is applying. And

a recommendation is made here.

Mr. GARCIA. I see.

Ms. PETERSEN. Oh, yes. The recommendation will be made by the

person conducting the interview in New York or wherever. And

that application will go up, for a number of reasons, and in terms

of efficiency of processing, by having only four centers nationwide

where the actual decision is made, the Service is more easily able

to keep the decisions uniform.

But still having that personal factor that you're talking about by

having interviews conducted locally and the recommendation made

locally.

Mr. GARCIA. It may be too early to ask the following question.

But how many of those people who have been recommended for it

have received their card within 60 days?

Ms. PETERSEN. It is too early. They only started on May 5. I don't

know if anybody has gotten it back yet.

Mr. GARCIA. May 5, we're talking about

Ms. PETERSEN. It will be four weeks tomorrow.

Mr. GARCIA. Yes. Okay.

Mr. DYMALLY. NO questions, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. GARCIA. Mr. Schumer.

Mr. SCHUMER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would just like to

follow up on two areas. One with Ms. Petersen.

Is the number of applicants in the New York area considerably

lower than what was expected, in the same percentage as California, Texas, Florida, or is ours much lower than other areas?

Ms. PETERSEN. I believe that it's comparable. I got a figure on

Friday from Washington. But as of close of business Wednesday,

which would have been three weeks after the beginning, we had received 36 thousand and some odd applications nationwide, and of

those, more than 30,000 had been interviewed.

But I think considering the proportion around the country, we're

probably about the same.

Mr. SCHUMER. And how many in New York as of that time?
49

Ms. PETERSKN. I can find that out for you. I believe it's between

five and ten thousand.

Mr. SCHUMER. So it would be anywhere between 15 and 25 percent of the national total, which overall is terribly low but at least

it shows that they're not doing something wrong in New York that

they're doing right somewhere else.

"Hie other question I had on that is QDEs. That does not include

the work of the qualified designated entities?

Ms. PETERSEN. Yes, sir, it does.

Mr. SCHUMER. It does?

Ms. PETERSEN. Yes.

Mr. SCHUMER. In other words, if somebody has gone to his

church and they filled out the application

Ms. PETERSEN. Oh, I see what you mean. No. If the qualified designated entity has not yet submitted it to Immigration, then I don't

believe that's been

Mr. SCHUMER. And have the QDEs started submitting them?

Ms. PETERSEN. They have, yes.

Mr. SCHUMER. The Catholic Church, particularly?

Ms. PETERSEN. I think so. I don't know particularly about the

Catholic Church, but I believe they have.

Mr. SCHUMER. Okay.

Then my questions of Mr. Bounpane is the same question I had

asked Assemblyman Del Toro and Mr. Schwarz. First, how is it

that we can acknowledge that we have 500 and what was it, 25, 500

and some odd thousand undercounted in New York in 1980 and yet

not have those numbers credited to us; and second, not have the

Census Bureau realize that their process didn't work very well, at

least in this area, for counting undocumented? Two questions. I

don't want to put you on the firing line. Everyone says you're a

terrific and conscientious fellow. But you're the only one here.

Mr. BOUNPANE. Thank you. I'll be glad to try and answer them.

The first one, the problem is that no one knows exactly that it's

525,000 people. Let me tell you what we have said.

We agreed there is an undercount. We agree the undercount is

differential by black and non-black. We agree that the undercount

is differential by Hispanic and non-Hispanic. And we agree that

the problem is more severe in some cities like New York than in

the country as a whole.

We have no argument with those statements. And we're not

happy about that and we want to improve that in the Census for

the reasons that have been stated.

The problem comes when you try and estimate the exact number

of people missing in the Census. It's very difficult to do. It is only

an estimate.

That 525,000 number, whatever it is, could be 400,000, could be

600,000. Higher or lower.

Mr. SCHUMER. Could it be 50,000?

Mr. BOUNPANE. I doubt it could be 50,000.

That's because we take a survey after the Census and you have

to match it to the Census to figure out how many people were

missed in the Census.

Any error in that matching process during that second survey is

reflected in our estimate. And what we have said is that we are not
50

sure that using that estimate makes the numbers better on average

everywhere.

Fritz even said that. He said that the deciding factor would be

whether the adjustment makes the numbers better. And in his

opinion, they did.

We feel exactly the same way, that if it made it better, we think

it should be done.

We are not sure that it does. In fact we have some serious doubts

that it does, and it's that that is the difference of opinion.

Mr. SCHUMER. Yes. Okay. Let me go to another, and then I'll get

back.

Mr. BOUNPANE. Okay.

Mr. SCHUMER. One of the things the Mayor mentioned is people

doubling up in public housing. You'll send a form to them.

Mr. BOUNPANE. Right.

Mr. SCHUMER. The one family that officially lives there, if all

things go well, fills it out. They don't mention that the other

people are with them.

Mr. BOUNPANE. Right.

Mr. SCHUMER. YOU knock on the door, someone answers, you ask

"Who's living here?" They mention, "it's my son, my daughter, my

husband." And they don't mention the other family.

How the heck do you catch people like that?

Mr. BOUNPANE. YOU raised a good point. Our problem is convincing people to cooperate.

Mr. SCHUMER. See, that's where I fundamentally disagree. To

these folks out there, it's a different philosophy than you would

have or I would have. The government is the enemy. And they're

not going to make a distinction and say this Census group is a

friend and the INS or the IRS or whoever else is not. Even my constituents, who are here legally and have a higher educational level,

don't make the distinction. It s the government.

Now, you go into the heart of the ghettoes and barrios of New

York, and I don't care if you put an ad on every day. They're not

going to believe you.

If I were doubled up in an apartment, if I were here illegally, I

wouldn't give my name no matter how many commercials you

make.

So what we need is something other than the method you've

been using. That's my problem with the whole deal. It's based on a

middle class view, much like the way the United States does foreign policy in certain Third World countries.

The reason we get clobbered is we have no understanding of

what's going on there and we impose our own mindset on them.

Skip the ads, and similar methods. There's no benefit for this

person who's been basically hurt by government throughout his or

her life, rather than helped by government, that an ad is going to

change. We need a numerical change. We need you to rely on the

housing authority, for example. They can tell you. Because they

have the janitors, the carpenters, and the supervisors and the

people who run the housing. They know, because they see.

The man who runs the housing projects in my district knows

people are doubled up and can point it out. That s what we need.

That's the problem. The problem that I am so anguished about
51

right now is that all this talk that we had here is not going to solve

the problem, despite, and I admit, the good intentions, non-malevolence, of the Census Bureau.

Then to say well, Congress should change this method, and Fritz

Schwartz makes an excellent and cogent argument, but I've been

in Congress only seven years, enough to know that the gentleman

from Kansas who is going to lose a seat if these people are counted

or even thinks he's going to lose a seat and he's happy with the

status quo, is not likely to vote for it. You don't have profiles in

courage, particularly when it relates to something as near and dear

as survival every day. Not on an issue as arcane as this one.

So, that's a fusillade against Mr. Bounpane. Can you try to

answer some

Mr. BOUNPANE. Your concern is legitimate. We have the same

concerns.

Let me just say a few things. First of all, census coverage has improved over time. The undercount rate for blacks in the 1970

census was on the order of 9 percent. Best estimates are that the

undercount rate for blacks in the 1980 census was on the order of 5

percent.

Now, I'm not sitting here bragging that that's good. I'm saying it

has made an improvement.

Mr. SCHUMER. I just have a question. How do you know what it is

if you've never reached all these people?

Mr. BOUNPANE. I'm saying, the way we do it is go back at a

second point in time, reinterview, and match to the census. That is

one method.

The second method is to estimate the total population by an independent method, using birth and death records, et cetera, and

compare that to the census.

The numbers I just gave you came from that second method•

independently estimating the population and comparing that to the

census.

Fortunately, birth and death records for blacks are relatively

good in the United States. For Hispanics that's not the case. And

that's why we only have estimates of undercount for Hispanics in

very recent censuses.

However, your point about not addressing the problem with

standard techniques is a good one. We will have a publicity campaign in 1990, like the one in 1980, but it is aimed at getting the

majority of the people aware of the census and encouraging them

to return their questionnaires by mail.

We will have something supplemental to that to get at the difficult to enumerate. We call this the Census Community Awareness

Program. It is a grassroots effort of pulling people out in the cities

where we have difficulty to try and find the right persons that we

can talk to and convince of the importance of the census. We want

to separate it from the rest of the government, as hard as that may

be. That is exactly the impression we're trying to give.

And hopefully, if we find the right people there, they can talk to

the people who live in the communities and get them to do that.

Mr. SCHUMER. There's no thought of using some kind of statistical method as opposed to this mailing and then following up with

individual interviews in the initial count?
52

Mr. BOUNPANE. A couple of things about that.

You made a point earlier about perhaps the mail is not the best

method in some areas. I thought that was reasonable. Except Congressman Towns also made a very important point that some

people don't like to answer their door. And so you have this conflict.

Mr. SCHUMER. Neither is good.

Mr. BOUNPANE. Neither is good. I understand.

We are contemplating using non-mail methods in certain areas

of hard-to-enumerate cities to try to address the problem that you

raise. So we're looking at different ways to try to do it procedurally.

Mr. SCHUMER. I mean, 100,000, or so•I don't remember what the

Mayor said, families doubled up in public housing, which is a real

anamoly. If I'm sharing my own private apartment with somebody,

I still might be afraid if the lease says I can only have five people

in the apartment. But in public housing•it's an enormous task. I

don't deny that. But I just think that going through it by rote and

saying, here's a house and here's this and here's that, is not going

to work, and hasn't worked, as the 500,000, maybe it's 400,000,

maybe it's 600,000 have done.

And I for one would like to cooperate with the Chairman, today's

Chairman as well as the present Chairman and try to do something

a little different. We've got to break through.

Mr. BOUNPANE. I understand. And we will use your help to the

maximum extent you can give it to us, because we need that.

If I could just tell you a few thoughts we have about public housing projects.

What we perhaps should do is pick someone who lives in the

housing project, who knows the people there, and make them the

census enumerator for the housing project.

Mr. SCHUMER. I'm sorry to keep interrupting you. It can be my

uncle, but my uncle is sending the information to someone far

away and I'm living there illegally. Now, if you told a person, if

you went to a person in a housing project and you said look, you

don't have to get everyone to sign the sheet. But you tell us how

many people are really living in Apartment 307. You might get an

accurate description.

But once you tell them "now get so and so to sign up," it's gone.

Mr. BOUNPANE. Congressman, that is something that is acceptable. We can do that.

Mr. SCHUMER. YOU could ask someone who lives in which apartment house, how many people live here?

Mr. BOUNPANE. Where we are not able to collect all the information directly, we are able to get the total number of people and allocate the rest of the information. We try to keep that to a minimum, but that is something we can do. And do do.

Mr. SCHUMER. I would suggest that in areas of Brooklyn, and you

have three quarters of the Congressional delegation from Brooklyn

here, that you're going to find that 25 percent of all of Brooklyn,

which is 2.2 million people plus, however much the undercount

would give us, needs that kind of thing. And my quess is it probably happened in 1 percent or 2 percent. So you really have to

expand it, expand it enormously.
53

Anyway, I don't want to take the Committee's time, but I

thought it was important. Thank you.

Mr. GARCIA. Congressman Towns.

Mr. TOWNS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. Petersen, you used the phrase "New York Region" and

"New York District." What is that?

Ms. PETERSEN. Actually, it's the New York District, which encompasses Long Island, the Five Boroughs, and parts of Westchester. But the Eastern Region is approximately one quarter of the

United States, including the Northeastern United States down to

Washington, D.C., I believe down to Virginia. So that the New

York District is part of the Eastern Region.

Within the New York District, we have three Legalization Offices.

Mr. TOWNS. There seems to be some information floating around

that some of the legalization operations might be closed.

Have you heard that?

Ms. PETERSEN. I heard that months ago, that we would monitor

very carefully all around the country, the Legalization Offices and

their intake, and that if some offices were doing more business

than others, that we might have to shift resources for a while until

the counts became more proportional to the number of people.

Certainly, the Service doesn't want to have staff sitting idle, in

any place around the country.

Mr. TOWNS. Well, in terms of the Mayor's office here and all the

information that we receive, is that the undocumented population,

biggest undocumented population, is in brooklyn.

So it seems to me that being there's not a lot of activity, that you

should think very seriously about opening a Legalization Center in

Brooklyn. Because I will assure you that if you do that, you will

find that these numbers will probably go up drastically.

Ms. PETERSEN. The Service looked at the possibility of Brooklyn

and Queens equally when they were trying to decide, the same as

in Nassau and Suffolk. The District was trying to find the best location, in terms of a number of different factors, some place that

people could get to easily by public transportation, that they could

drive to and park at, that the voluntary agencies were near, and so

forth.

They did look at a number of sites in Brooklyn. But there just

didn't seem to be a viable site. I think the one place that they

looked at was still under construction and it was in an area that

they had netting to catch bricks and things falling off the building.

And I know that was one particular area.

I was not directly involved in picking the site. But I believe that,

I don't remember who, but I believe one or two Congressmen did go

around and see one or two of the sites that had been selected or

considered as possibilities. And we just, Queens, the particular site

in Queens seemed to be the best area. I believe there are seven

subway lines that come into it, there's parking available, it was a

large space that could be made available in time. So I think that's

how they chose Queens.

Mr. TOWNS. I would still like to offer my services if you're still

interested, and if you're still going to close some of those centers
54

that we keep hearing, that we would like to invite you to Brooklyn

and I would like to assist you in finding a place in Brooklyn.

Ms. PETERSEN. Well, I appreciate that. What I might ask you if

you would, is to encourage your people for the time being, though,

since we have an office set up, and it was quite a bit of work to do

so, if there are people who are ready to apply, I'd certainly encourage them to go to either Queens or Manhattan, wherever it's easier

for them, at the present time, since those offices are already existing.

Mr. TOWNS. Let me just be quite candid. When I hear of the processing, the documentation, and the cards being sent from Vermont,

and then I look at the fact that the undocumented, there's no question about it, are in Brooklyn and that for some reason or other we

can't get a center in Brooklyn, you know, you have to expect it to

be a little funny. And I want to just share that with you. And I was

trying not to say that. But I think that, I'm certain that if you talk

to people around, many of them probably feel the same way I do

about that. So I would like to just sort of convey that message, that

Brooklyn is a place where undocumented live and that that's

where they are, and a center should definitely be established there.

Ms. PETERSEN. I'll mention that back at the office.

Mr. TOWNS. Thank you very much.

Let me just ask you, have you had any discussions with INS in

reference to actually following up on something in the statement

that was made I think by Assemblyman Del Toro in reference to

INS raids or INS sort of having a moratorium during the period

that they're doing the Census.

Have you had any discussions with them about that?

Mr. BOUNPANE. Yes, we have. Let me go back first of all to 1980

and then I'll tell you about 1990.

We did discuss with the INS in 1980 reducing the raids during

the period of the Census. They did agree to do that, and we were

happy they did becasue we think it helped.

When we approached them again concerning 1990, it was not

clear that there will be residential raids, based on the new law.

The sanctions might be on the order of employer sanctions rather

than residential raids.

And so we don't know what we're going to do about 1990 because

it will depend on what the INS does. The door's open and we plan

to talk to them as necessary after we see what's going to happen.

VOICE. YOU said residential raids. Are you implying there will be

factory raids?

Mr. BOUNPANE. I don't know if there will be factory raids. All I

know is that there are employer sanctions.

Mr. TOWNS. I encourage you to have those kind of discussions

with them because I think that it really could bring about a chilling effect if that occurs, even if it's just one situation where it's

highly publicized, and I think that would be a problem.

Mr. BOUNPANE. I agree with you fully, Congressman, and, as

Chris has just mentioned, our Director has already met with the

INS. We will continue to have discussions.

Ms. PETERSEN. Just one comment on that. For approximately five

years, we've had a case management system in effect in the Investigations Branch, where from a purely practical point of view we've
55

tried to look at how to best use the resources that have been available to us. And the Service has determined on a number of different levels that it is more effective to go after, for example, alien

smugglers and so forth than to try to pick up the individual illegal

alien.

That's not to say we wouldn't pick up an illegal alien that came

to our attention. But we do try to go rather, to factories, whatever,

for the large numbers. With employer sanctions, we'll try to be targeting the employers rather than the illegal aliens.

If we come across illegal aliens, naturally, you know, we would

be obliged to enforce the law, to administer the law and arrest

them. But that's not the thrust. It is not to go after individual illegal aliens.

Mr. TOWNS. Thank you. I have no further questions, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Mr. GARCIA. Congressman Owens.

Mr. OWENS. One question, Mr. Bounpane. In your dialogue with

Congressman Schumer, several things came out in terms of the

range of possibilities you have in the approaching of the problem of

seeking out people, information about people who don't come forward.

Is there any way we can be assured that there will be some kind

of consultation apparatus set up as we approach the Census so that

those range of possibilities will be followed, we can have some way

to guarantee that the particular people who are assigned to do our

area are aware of that range of possibilities, and motivated to use

them all to the extent possible, to get as accurate a count as possible?

Is there some way we can have a consultation apparatus involving the Congressmen, elected officials and local leaders so that we

can have an ongoing dialogue and make sure that within the constraints of what you have to do, every possible device is used?

Mr. BOUNPANE. Yes, Congressman; I think that's a good idea and

I think we can do that.

In New York, we're fortunate that the Regional Office happens

to be in New York. So the census will be run out of the regional

office which is in this building.

Some very good things have come out of the constant contact between the people who run the census here and the local elected officials and the key community leaders. Together we can make sure

that we are doing the right things.

We have some programs in place to accomplish that. I won't go

into all of those•such as the Complete Count Committees, and so

on. We can do more of that, and I will speak to our Regional Office

here. I'm sure they would want to do the same thing to make sure

that happens.

Mr. OWENS. Are you the person I can see to hold that commitment

in place?

Mr. BOUNPANE. For New York City itself, I think it would be

better to talk to the Regional Director here. If I can point her out,

she's here. Sheila Goehringer, our Regional Director of New York

City.

Mr. DYMALLY. Mr. Chairman, a Congressman made the observation that he sees no evidence of an INS public relations or commu-
56

nity program informing people about the amnesty program, as the

Census Bureau will do in 1989 and 1990. Do you have any public

affairs program that you're pursuing to give somebody assurance,

sign up and do not be afraid to be a citizen?

Ms. PETERSEN. We have tried very hard, as I said, to get the word

out through a number of different means, one of which is granting

television interviews and speaking at seminars and so forth.

I recently saw something, we're starting a poster campaign as

well just to alert people to the fact that this benefit is there for

them, and try to encourage them to take advantage of it.

As I said earlier, we're trying to make ourselves as available as

possible to speak on these issues of confidentiality, of not being concerned. One of the big concerns mentioned has been family members who are not eligible.

At the present time, I'm not sure what's going to happen with

those family members, but certainly one thing that they should

keep in mind, we, the Service will not be taking any action against

those members simply based on the fact that they're on that application because the branch that would take action won't know that

they're on that application.

So we're doing our best to get the word out. And I would certainly be happy to provide speakers. I know we've done that with Mr.

Towns. I'm not sure about the others of you. I know you've sponsored a couple of programs, and we've been very happy to attend.

Mr. DYMALLY. DO you think you have an image problem, "The

Friendly INS"?

Ms. PETERSEN. DO you mean you think we're not? We're trying

very hard all the time to maintain a friendly image.

Mr. GARCIA. I have a serious problem with that. Let me state

what the problem is.

You've got 11 months left. This runs for one year. You're dealing

with people who really for the most part are poor, and people who

for the most part have serious problems as it relates to your

agency.

Historically, it has not been an agency where people have been

treated fairly.

The problem I have, and it's long before you ever arrived on the

scene. It's the nature of your agency. The problem I have, you have

11 months left to go. As far as I'm concerned, and I take nothing

away from any of the other witnesses, you're really the key witness, to this hearing. Because that's what this is all about. How are

we coping with legalization?

If there's anything positive that came out of the Simpson- Rodino

Bill, was legalization. I have serious problems with many other aspects of the bill. I voted against it. But I really have a problem that

we're not moving as fast as we can because nothing is really being

done.

I think Congressman Rangel's conversation with my colleague

yesterday was right on target. I have not seen anything. I know I

cut a couple of tapes in Spanish in Washington. I haven't seen

them. I don't know of anybody else who has seen them.

And you know, we're working with 11 months left. And we started off, where a program where everybody had given high hopes
57

that millions of people were going to come forth. 36,000 by your estimate. I have 27,000 by my staffs estimate.

So we're really talking about a miniscule number of people

coming forward. And if there's anything that's going to come out of

this Simpson-Rizzoli Bill, it's got to be that the amnesty works and

functions.

The only thing that I am hopeful for, that I can hope for, is that

we extend the period beyond a year. Because a year is not going to

be enough, based on where we are. The startup time is probably

not enough. And we are just coming, we're still coming down with

regulations.

I mean, as recently as last week, I think the Senate moved on

the employer sanctions portion of it. But we really have a problem,

a major, major problem. And INS is not meeting it.

And in fairness to you and in fairness to everybody else, I think

that's the crux of what we here in this city are concerned about.

And I would hope that if you take any message back you take the

message back that not enough is being done, and that INS really

has to start moving a lot more aggressively to really send that message out and to bring people in.

And I just don't, I don t know what the answer is. All I know is

that the little bit we can do here in terms of establishing a record

so that as the years progress we can always say that at this particular moment, by INS, this is what they stated.

I would hope and I would sincerely wish that yourself and Mr.

Nelson in Washington and all the people who are responsible•you

know, it's interesting enough, you and I at the end of each day can

go home. There are a lot of other people who are concerned about

going home in the sense that, you know, they're afraid, they're constantly looking over their shoulders.

Let s get something out of Simpson-Mazzoli, and let me hope that

INS is doing everything humanly possible. Because the figures are

absolutely disgraceful and I have to tell you, I see, based upon

what we're doing here, I don't see any improvement. I really don't.

Ms. PETERSEN. Well, I think just to answer that for a little bit, I

think the Service is also very concerned about the low numbers.

And I believe they are taking measures in Washington to do more

as a nationwide effort to promote this. But I do know that locally,

we've had people speaking on radio shows as well as on some of the

television, Hispanic, for example, television stations just last week,

they had somebody do an interview in Spanish.

Ms. GARCIA. You're talking about a viewing area of New York of

about 14 million people, in total, and the show is on at 2 o'clock in

the afternoon. How many people are watching; 10,000, 5,000? It's

{'ust not enough. It's got to be a constant pounding, a constant bommrdment of the air waves, at prime time. You have to meet your

FCC requirements. But at prime time, so that•let the station meet

their FCC requirements. But this is what we really need. Because I

hate to tell you, I'm shocked. I am really shocked. When the other

part of this bill, the negative part of this bill starts, the sanctions,

it's going to be chaotic.

And I would hope you will get that message back.

Ms. PETERSEN. One last comment, I could like to say that we certainly, we agree with you wholeheartedly. The Service wants to see
legalization succeed. And we'll do whatever we can to help make it

succeed and to implement it properly so that it does.

Mr. GARCIA. Thank you very much.

Ms. Maria Kamiya, Center for Immigrant Rights; Mr. Arthur

Helton, Lawyers' Committee for Human Rights; Mr. James Haggerty, Regional Legalization Director, United States Catholic Conference, Migration and Refugee Services; and Mr. Muzaffar Chishti,

Director of the ILGWU Immigration Project.

If you folks would be kind enough to take your seats.

Okay, gentlemen. You've been patient. You sat and you listened

to most of it. I would suggest that you take your written statements, we'll enter all of them without objection into the record,

and why don't you take five minutes; why don't you start from my

right.

TESTIMONY OF ARTHUR C. HELTON, ESQUIRE, LAWYERS

COMMITTEE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

Mr. HELTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Subcommittee. My name is Arthur Helton. In addition to directing the Political Asylum Project, which is playing a role principally on training questions under the new law, in terms of the implementation of

the legalization provisions of the new immigration law, I also chair

a 20-member advisory committee to the New York State InterAgency Task Force on Immigration Affairs.

I understand Cesar Perales, who is listed to testify, is doing the

state's business today in Washington. But I did want to report to

you briefly that the Inter-Agency Task Force which he chairs is responsible for issuing a report in March which identified 64 cases of

unnecessary and abusive firings under the new law over the first

two months of its implementation. It also held a public hearing on

April 2 in New York City at which 30 witnesses testified. And as a

result of that public hearing, the advisory committee offered and

submitted comments to the immigration authorities on the implementation of the new law in April, prior to the issuance of the

final regulations under the legalization provisions.

We are at this point assembling information respecting the implementation of the legalization provisions and are considering the

issuance of a report this summer on where the legalization process

stands in New York State.

Obviously, one way to overcome the well-established and traditinally disproportionate undercount of undocumented aliens in the

United States, and in New York in particular, is to implement the

legalization provisions in a flexible, efficient and fair manner, and

to offer amnesty to that portion of the estimated 850,000 to 1.5 million undocumented, most of whom live in New York City, as the

population estimated to live in New York State.

Now, the legal framework for this is somewhat complicated.

There are four routes to status, three of which have actually been

mentioned at these hearings, including a registry provision for

those who were here prior to 1972, a special Cuban-Haitian adjustment provision for those who had contact with the immigration authorities prior to 1982, the special agricultural worker provision for

those who worked at least 90 days in the year period from May of
59

1985 to May of 1986 and, the focus of most of our attention, general

legalization for those who entered prior to January 1, 1982 and resided in a continuously unlawful status.

The institutional framework in New York for realizing status

under the terms of these provisions is composed of five satellite offices, three of which are in New York City, and 39 Qualified Designated Entities which have experienced severe implementation

problems.

The implementation questions are those that I think you need to

begin addressing in some more systematic fashion.

Preparation has been uneven on the part of the Qualified Designated Entities. The larger ones have done better, have had forms,

have had people with experience; the smaller ones sometimes have

not had forms, are unprepared, do not yet have people with experience.

People who have been referred to them have returned to the referring agencies and said there are operations that are not yet

open and that are not currently operational.

The principal problem, however, is what I would characterize as

the legalistic form of the regulations that were finally issued, what

some might call the nit-picking approach that would require exquisite documentation on the part of those who present claims for

status under the provisions of the new law. Those in the Qualified

Designated Entities who we talk to have said that many times

aliens have to be interivewed four times, and that it takes from

five to ten hours per individual to assemble the documentation required.

If I can just share a specific example with you, we had two Haitians who we presented for adjustment last week under the special

program in the New York District who were turned away largely

because they had not presented documentation that they had received letters, or had transactions in the United States in 1981.

However, it was the case that they had actually been in the custody of the Immigration and Naturalization Service throughout

most of 1981, a fact which we pointed out in the application itself,

and which the authorities could have discovered by simply looking

at their administrative records, as we invited them to in the application.

But nonetheless, they were turned away because they hadn't

shown sufficient documentary evidence that they'd been in the

United States in 1981, or had contact with the immigration authorities, even though they were then in detention.

Mr. DYMALLY. They had no paperwork after they were released

from detention?

Mr. HELTON. They had plenty of paperwork, and that wasn't the

issue. The question was whether they had anything to show that

they were here prior to 1982, during which period they were in INS

custody.

So the documentation required is excessive. What we plan to do

is try again this week on these cases, copying and submitting a lot

of the documents that the INS already has in their administrative

records.
60

I only cite that as an example to show you the tough-minded enforcement nit-picking character of the approach taken, in terms of

these cases.

People have to jump a series of hurdles and even then it doesn't

seem to work.

I think we will prevail, but with unrepresented people or people

who are less persistent, I think there would be problems.

Now, there are other problems in this area. There are only 41

designated civil surgeons. There's a bottleneck in terms of people

who need to obtain medical examination results in order to finalize

their applications for legalization status. The forms, as it stands

now, are only in English, with the exception of the medical examination form. Experience and training are uneven. Many of the staff

of Qualified Designated Entities do not know which route to status

is best for the individuals involved.

Some routes are far superior. Registry leads quickly to permanent residence. Cuban-Haitian adjustment leads not only to permanent residence, but citizenship almost immediately. Special agricultural worker status leads quickly to permanent residence.

General legalization, the focus of all the attention, is actually the

least desirable of the routes to status because people are not able to

give status to their family, to bring families in, and they are rendered ineligible for five years from certain kinds of public assistance.

The information campaign thr.t has been alluded to in the proceedings before you has not been forthcoming. It is a federal responsibility. The plan was to saturate the media of all kinds with

information, including information concerning confidentiality.

It hasn't happened. In New York, the needs are particularly unusual in terms of the multi-lingual character of the undocumented

population in New York. And I would certainly emphasize the importance of bearing this in mind. Not even adequate information

disseminated in the Hispanic media will suffice in New York,

where there are large numbers of Haitians who speak Creole or

Orientals who speak other languages.

In sum, I would simply say that INS estimates that almost 4 million people will benefit from status under the new law. The best

estimate we've heard is that there are 36,000 applications that

have been filed.

Tomorrow we will be one month into the legalization process.

There are many applicants, I think that's clear. There's a lot of activity at many of the Qualified Designated Entities and other sites

where people are rendering legal assistance.

However, there are very few applications filed. To us, that means

that there are important implementation problems that are preventing the completion of the applications. Specifically, highly

technical documentation requirements.

People are having to go back and try to reconstruct lives that

they led in a largely undocumented way without producing a paper

trail.

Training, public education, coordination, quality control•these

are all important aspects that have yet to be finally established.

But the real problem is the technical and implementation issues relating to documentation at this time.
61

If these issues are not resolved, then the generous promise of amnesty under the new immigration law will be undercut and heed

will have to be paid to those who are already calling for an extension of the application period.

Thank you.

[Mr. Helton's full statement follows:]

77-631 0-87
62

STATEMENT OF ARTHUR C. HELTON, ESQ.

INTRODUCTION

Chairman Dymally, thank you for inviting me to

testify at today's hearing. My name is Arthur Helton. I am

the Director of the Political Asylum Project of the New

York-based Lawyers Committee for Human Rights. I also am

Chair of the Advisory Committee to New York State's

Inter-Aqency Task Force on Immigration Affairs. Since

enacted, I have been monitoring the implementation of the

Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA).

With the exemption of California, New York State has

the largest number of undocumented persons in this country.

Governor Mario M. Cuomo has expressed his deep concern for

their future under this law, and it is a basic purpose of the

Task Force to see that the residents of New York receive the

full benefits of IRCA, and to promote the just and effective

implementation of the laws.

My testimony today concerns the legalization of

undocumented aliens in the State of New York. In particular,

I wish to comment upon the need to make this process a

smoother and more efficient one in order for the law to

include all the people who might benefit from it.

THE LAW

The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986

provides that all aliens who entered the United States before
63

January 1, 1982, and who have resided continuously in an

unlawful status in the United States, are eligible

immediately to become temporary residents, a first step

toward eventual permanent status. The Immigration and

Naturalization Service (INS) has established 107 Legalization

Offices around the country to process the applications of

aliens seeking to regularize their immigration status. In

addition, the INS has named numerous "Qualified Designated

Entities" (QOEs) around the country to help with the

legalization process. The QDEs serve as buffers between

undocumented persons wishing to benefit from the IRCA and the

INS. All of the information compiled by the QDEs is

confidential and cannot be used by the INS or any other

federal agency in any case against an undocumented alien.

These protections recognize the traditional fear that the

undocumented have of immigration officials.

There are other routes to status aside from general

legalization. Specifically, the IRCA has four categories of

status possibilities: (1) Registry, (2) Cuban-Haitian

Adjustment, (3) Special Agricultural Worker adjustment, and

(4) General Legalization. Eligibility requirements and

application procedures vary, and following is a brief summary

of the substantive criteria that must be satisfied to gain

status under the four categories.
64

Registry

To avail themselves of the registry provision,

aliens must present documentary evidence of continuous

residence in the United States since January 1, 1982. The

applicant's primary dwelling, without regard to intent, must

have been in the United States. Temporary absences which do

not abandon residence do not break continuous residence, as

actual physical presence is not required. Departure due to

an enforced order of deportation or exclusion breaches

continuous residence. However, voluntary departure, whether

or not proceedings were instituted, does not terminate

continuous residence. Unlike general legalization, residence

need not be in an unlawful immigration status. Affidavits

from credible sources are acceptable to show residence for

the requisite period.

Registry is the most desirable general route to

status because eligible aliens are immediately adjusted to

permanent residence. This means that they are immediately

eligible for all federal need-based financial assistance

programs and will be able to petition for family members to

attain lawful status. No numerical limitations apply to the

registry provision.

Cuban-Haitian Adjustment

Under the Cuban-Haitian adjustment provision, all

nationals of Cuba or Haiti assigned the immigration
65

designation "Cuban-Haitian entrant (status-pending)" as of

November 6, 1986, or who entered the United States and had a

record established with the INS before January 1, 1982 or

who, even if admitted in valid non-immigrant status, applied

for political asylum before January 1, 1982, are eligible for

immediate adjustment to permanent residence.

The alien must have "continuously resided" in the

United States since January 1, 1982. This definition, the

same as for general legalization, means that (1) no single

absence can be greater than 45 days, (2) all absences from

January 1, 1982 and the date the application for adjustment

was filed must not exceed 180 days, (3) the alien had a

residence in the United States, and (4) no absence was due to

an order of exclusion and deportation.

Several exclusion provisions under the general

immigration law do not apply, including being a public charge

(receipt of public assistance), deported or excluded within

the past year, aliens without valid passports or visas, and

illiterates. However, aliens convicted of or admitting to a

crime of moral turpitude will be denied legal status. The

statute and regulations are silent on the waiver of exclusion

provisions under the general immigration law. This has

created some concern that such exclusion provisions may be

used against Cubans or Haitians. Also, the confidentiality

provisions under general legalization do not apply to this

adjustment provision.
The adjustment provision provides a superior

approach for eligible Cubans and Haitians. The date of

adjustment to permanent residence is retroactive to January

1, 1982. This means that successful applicants may apply for

citizenship once they attain permanent residence. In

addition, aliens who obtain status under the Cuban-Haitian

adjustment provision are immediately eligible for financial

assistance and able to bring family members to the United

States.

Special Agricultural Workers

There are two classes of aliens who qualify for

legalization as agricultural workers (Group I), those who

worked 90 "man-days" and resided in the United States for six

months during each 12 month period ending on Nay 1, 1984,

1985 and 1986, and (Group II) those who performed 90 such

days of qualifying work during the 12 month period ending on

May 1, 1986.

A "man-day" is any day in which one hour of

qualifying work or any piecework was performed. Agricultural

employment refers to any "seasonal fieldwork relating to

planting, cultural practices, cultivating, growing and

harvesting of fruits, vegetables and other perishable

commodities." In addition, the Department of Agriculture is

considering an extensive definition of "other perishable
67

commoditiesbeyond produce that can spoil if not picked when

ripe. Those who qualify under Group I will be adjusted to

lawful permanent residence as of December 1, 1989; those in

Group II will be adjusted as of December 1, 1990. The

difference is that a numerical limit of 350,000 exists for

Group I and everyone eligible beyond this point will be

shifted to Group II, which has no limit.

In addition to being able to file applications in

the INS legalization offices or QDEs around the country,

eligible agricultural workers may also file them overseas at

processing offices with consular officers, who are authorized

to render decisions on applications.

Proof questions are similar to those involved in

general legalization, infra, except for proof of the

requisite period of employment. Proof of employment is best

established by primary evidence, including government

employment records or records maintained by agricultural

producers, farm labor contractors, collective bargaining

organizations or other groups. If primary evidence is not

available, tb*n secondary evidence, defined as worker

identification, union membership cards, pay stubs and

piecework receipts, certified copies of tax returns, and

affidavits submitted under oath may be used to meet the

standard of proof.
General Legalization

Aliens eligible Cor adjustment to lawful "Temporary

Resident Status" must have (1) "entered" the United States

before January 1, 1982, (2) resided continuously in the

United States since January 1, 1982, and (3) been physically

present in the United States from November 6, 1986 until the

application to acquire status is filed.

Entry. Aliens must have either entered illegally,

have their period of authorized stay expired before January

1, 1982, or have their unlawful status known to the federal

government as of January 1, 1982.

Residence. The alien's stay in the United States

must have been unlawful through the requisite period.

Regulations list categories of aliens eligible for

legalization because they were in an unlawful status as of

January 1, 1982. This list includes illegal entry,

non-immigrant visa overstays, non-immigrant exchange visitors

not subject to the two-year foreign residence requirement,

and those "granted voluntary departure, voluntary return,

extended voluntary departure or placed in a deferred action

category" before January 1, 1982.

The alien must demonstrate proof of continuous

residence, continuous physical presence, and identity.

Continuous physical presence since November 6, 1986 is not

lost by "brief, casual and innocent absences," which INS has
69

defined as those it authorized under its advance parole

procedure, or which occurred prior to Hay 1, 1987, for 30

days or less. District directors retain discretion to

authorize further periods of departure.

Documentary Evidence. An applicant must prove, by a

preponderance of the evidence, that he or she is eligible for

legalization. This includes proof of (1) identity, (2)

continuous residence, and (3) financial responsibility. The

regulations require that all documentation be submitted in

the original, but certified copies may be offered in lieu of

originals. The alien may be required to verify, if there are

gaps in his/her employment, that he/she and his/her family,

has not received certain forms of public cash assistance.

Acceptable documents for proof of identity include,

in descending order of preference, (1) passport, (2) birth

certificate, (3) national identity documents, (4) drivers'

licenses with photo, (5) baptismal or marriage records, and

(6) affidavits. Residence may be documented by (1) past

employment records, (2) utility bills and receipts, (3)

school records, (4) medical records, (5) letters from

churches, unions, or other organizations, and (6) other

documents like passport entries, social security cards,

selective service cards, and tax receipts. Past employment

records in the form of letters from employers must include

(1) the alien's address while employed, (2) the periods of
70

9

employment or layoffs, (3) job description, (4) whether the

information was taken from company records, and (5) where the

records are and whether INS can have access to them. If the

records are unavailable, a letter signed under penalty of

perjury stating why the records are unavailable and the

employer's willingness to testify under oath to the accuracy

of the letter must be included.

General legislation is the least desirable method of

attaining legal status. Successful applicants are denied

eligibility for need-based financial assistance for five

years and are unable to petition for family members to

receive legal status until becoming permanent residents.

Family members may not even be allowed to stay in the United

States until the legalizing alien becomes a permanent

resident.

INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK

The State of New York has a total of five INS

legalization offices located in: (1) Manhattan, (2) Queens,

(3) Nassau/Suffolk Counties, (4) Syracuse, and (S) Buffalo.

Of New York's 17,5 million residents, 2.5 million are

foreign-born. Estimates of the State's undocumented

population range from 850,000 to more than 1.5 million

persons. At least 75 percent of this group is believed to

live in the New York City metropolitan area, including New

York City, Long Island, and Westchester and Rockland

counties.
71

10

There are currently a total of 39 Qualified

Designated Entities in the metropolitan region. Since the

general legalization application period began on May 5, 1987,

the QOEs have handled an uneven number of applicants, from 1

person a day to several dozen. There are also 41 designated

civil surgeons authorized to perform the medical examinations

required of aliens who are applicants for temporary

residence. They range from medical groups with more than one

physician on staff to a practice with only one physician.

This number also includes laboratories which perform tests

necessary to complete a medical examination. Laboratory work

may be performed by any laboratory licensed by the State to

perform x-ray and serology tests. However, the results of

these tests and the final medical examination must be

authorized by a U.S. Public Health Service doctor or one of

the designated civil surgeons. In addition to the QDEs,

there are approximately 30 non-designated agencies in the

metropolitan area, including the Lawyers Committee, that are

performing a variety of tasks, from helping aliens with

applications to training and referring applicants for

appropriate legal assistance.

IMPLEMENTATION

The implementation of the legalization provisions of

the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 depends in
72

11

great part on the capacity and ability of the QDEs to process

undocumented aliens. Private lawyers are also being retained

to file applications on behalf of undocumented persons.

Given the relatively short six-month period for preparation

upon the enactment of the IRCA on November 6, 1986, the QDEs

and the INS Legalization Offices in New York State have done

an impressive job in simply opening for business on May 5,

1987.

From the outset, there have been inconsistent

degrees of preparedness on the part of the QDEs. However,

the lack of readiness on the part of the QDEs has allowed the

legalization offices in New York to take advantage of the low

level of activity to finish up last-minute preparatory

details at their sites. The largest QDEs have generally had

better training and the necessary forms. Still, some of the

largest QDEs started servicing the alien population up to 10

days after the law went into effect. The smaller QDEs have

fewer forms, and did not have all the forms required,

particularly medical forms. At the beginning of the second

week of the legalization program, some QDEs were still

getting notices of their designation by INS. Some advocates

and community groups do not know which QDEs are currently

open for business and where referrals can be made. Aliens

that they have referred to listed QDEs have sometimes

returned, reporting that the office was either closed or not

operational.
73

12

The burden of proof is on the undocumented alien,

and the process of filling out an application under the

highly legalistic regulations chat have been promulgated is,

in the words of one QDE worker, like "preparing for a major

lawsuit." Rather than having to assemble one or two pieces of

supporting documentary evidence, many QDEs feel that it is

necessary to investigate and prepare an exquisitely

documented application. Documentation furnished by aliens is

often fragmentary and it frequently takes several days or

longer to assemble supporting evidence regarding an alien's

identity, residence or employment. This difficult task is

delaying the process of transmitting completed applications

to the INS legalization sites. Some QDEs have questions

regarding the level of documentation required and would like

the INS to make it clear that there is no need for so much

supporting evidence. Others mentioned the need for an

extension of the application period (currently to end May 4,

1988 for general legalization) if the process continues to be

slowed by technical documentation requirements.

Because of the precision required in completing

legalization applications, some QDEs have reported that it is

difficult to complete an initial interview in one day, and

that it may take up to four interviews and five to ten hours

per alien to complete an application.

Completing the required medical examination has also

slowed the application process and many QDEs have complained
74

13

either that there are not enough civil surgeons, or that the

process is unduly cumbersome. In many cases the laboratories

and the civil surgeons are in different locations, delaying

the application process even further. Some QOEs have said

that if there were more and better medical facilities, they

would by now have had many more applicants ready to be

transmitted to the INS legalization offices. As the new law

continues to be implemented, however, it is expected that the

number of designated civil surgeons will be increased.

In instances where questions come up during the

application process, the QDEs have access to an INS outreach

coordinator. Also, QDEs have access to an INS counselor in

Washington. Few, however, have any form of systematic access

to independent legal counsel.

Once the applications are ready, they are brought or

mailed in to the appropriate legalization office. In the

first two weeks of the legalization program, lawyers and QDEs

in New York estimated that a reply to a request for an

appointment was taking 10 days to two weeks. If an

application is not complete or accurate, the fee accompanying

is returned and no appointment is given.

While there have been high levels of inquiries and

activity at some QDEs and other service-providing groups, the

INS legalization offices have been operating at a minimum

capacity. An information booth at the entrance of the
75

14

Manhattan site distributes applications to those who walk in

directly from the street. None of the information in the

applications is in a language other than English, with the

exception of the list of references for civil surgeons which

is in Spanish and English. Of course, the availability of

multilingual information is of vital concern in New York

which has a large variety of nationalities who speak

different languages.

The training of staff members and volunteers working

in the QDEs has been uneven. Some QOEs and their staff

members have extensive immigration backgrounds and have

participated in various training programs, including courses

taught by the INS. These experienced persons are generally

the most prepared to deal with specific questions relating to

the IRCA. For many staff members and volunteers working with

the designated entities, their involvement with the IRCA is

their first significant exposure to immigration practice.

Some are unable to advise aliens which of the four routes to

status it is best to pursue in their individual cases. Both

experienced and less experienced QDEs rely on a number of new

and insufficiently trained staff and volunteers, many of whom

remain to be trained. For the most part, however, many QDEs

reported receiving the cooperation of the INS in the training

of their staff.

Although some of the large QDEs have extensive

outreach and educational programs, others are still
76

15

familiarizing themselves with the law. One QDE printed

10,000 bilingual information cards which include information

about the law as well as information about the rights of

undocumented aliens; another QDE which will service one of

New York's ethnic communities mailed its first press release

a week after the IRCA went into effect, and has not completed

anyone's application yet.

Equally important to the success of the IRCA is the

public information campaign planned by the INS. In New York,

a multilingual approach will be needed. At this time,

however, there is no evidence of a publicity effort on the

part of the federal government. Given the customary

suspicion among the undocumented community towards the INS,

many QDEs and others have emphasized that the authorities

widely and effectively publicize the legalization provisions

of the new law.

CONCLUSION

The INS estimates that almost 4 million people will

benefit from the immigration reform law. But according to

INS last week only about 36,000 applications nationwide have

been filed with INS since the onset of the legalization

period on May S, including 3532 in the New York district, and

the vast majority of those applications have been filed

directly with INS. While both QDEs and private lawyers are
77

16

devoting substantial amounts of time on cases, the

legalization offices are practically empty. This suggests

that there is a wide gap between the number of undocumented

aliens seeking to take advantage of the law and the number of

those who have been able to make completed filings. Many of

the eligible undocumented may simply be waiting to see the

bona fides of the process demonstrated. Some may be deterred

by the level of the application fees ($165 per individual

with a $420 cap per family).

The questions raised by the QOEs regarding technical

documentation requirements and facilitation of medical and

other services must be addressed. Otherwise, the process of

legalization runs the risk of being severely backlogged, the

generous promise of amnesty in the new law may be undercut,

and heed may have to be paid to those who are calling already

for an extension of the application period.

At the national level there is an informal system of

information sharing among QDEs. But coordination and quality

control should be encouraged at all levels. Training and

public education are paramount needs.

We are at the beginning of a vast enterprise which

has the potential to take several millions of persons out of

the shadow world in which they had existed previously and to

add them to our political community. Care must be taken

immediately in order to have a reasonable chance for success.
78

TESTIMONY OF JAMES HAGGERTY, REGIONAL LEGALIZATION

DIRECTOR, U.S. CATHOLIC CONFERENCE, MIGRATION AND REFUGEE SERVICES

Mr. HAGGERTY. I want to thank the members of the committee

for inviting me today, and giving me the opportunity on behalf of

our agency to express our concerns on the implementation of the

legalization process.

My name is James Haggerty. I am the Regional Director for the

United States Catholic Conference, one of the Qualified Designated

Entities.

We are a qualified designated entity, and in addition, all of the

major dioceses around the country, principally where many or

most undocumented reside or even where small numbers reside,

have also applied for and been designated as "Qualified Designated

Entities."

We are trying to work very closely in several ways with INS to

make this a successful program so people who are eligible for legalization can apply. But it is not such a simple process.

The legalization program should be a remedial program and

those people who are eligible should get the benefit. That's what

we're trying to do. We're working very hard to do that.

Why isn't it happening? Well, we're concerned about some of the

final regulations. And we're also concerned about how the program

is being implemented.

We're basically saying that the message right now is not getting

back to the community, that this is not a program to entrap people

but is a program to help people get a benefit.

Specifically let me, among many issues, just highlight three

issues which I think are important:

First is the question of the interview process. We talked about

that a little bit, heard testimony today at the Legalization Center.

What's happening there? Second is the question about documentation. Again, we've heard a lot of information about that today, and

finally is the question about family unity.

I think, taking all these together, we're seeing that the interview

process is not really fair and there's a lot of problems with it. The

requirements for documentation are very restrictive, and there's a

lot of problems for Qualified Designated Entities trying to implement and obtain the kind of documentation necessary. And the

whole question of family unity and the question of confidentiality

is a large issue.

Specifically on the interview process. There's no message getting

back to the community of what s happening. We've heard testimony from Ms. Peterson today explaining that the decision won't

even be known for people for a couple of months.

Now, when someone goes to an interview, and they present•we

have this very cloudy issue of how much documentation is enough.

You know, how much is enough? No one really knows. INS will not

say specifically what you need. Do you need proof for every day,

every week, every month?

And obviously, as a Qualified Designated Entity, we're trying to

prepare the best case we can based on the knowledge we have of

what's required.
79

But we can't get that information. Why?

When you go into the interview process, normal INS practice is,

in any other kind of application, if you don't have enough documents, you're missing something, they give you what's called a 972

Form. It says you're missing this, come back in 30 days, and bring

it.

Specifically in New York, we have definitely been told that this

process will not be followed. What will happen if you just don't

happen to have enough documentation? It will be recommended for

denial.

We're told, well, on appeal you can clarify that. Can you imagine

what we would have to go through as a Qualified Designated

Entity to appeal all these kinds of cases?

So, in addition, we would like to see that people know, and we've

raised this issue on many occasions. We are even concerned now

that this will become the national policy.

Many INS District Directors are not following that. This is specifically in New York. We have raised this on a national policy

level, and we're told that maybe they're going to implement the

New York procedure nationwide, not to tell people what they need.

Second of all, we were told that you would be told at the interview what the recommendation was going to be. That's not happening in New York.

Our cases, I've discussed at the Bar Association meeting, I asked

attorneys who would file applications•they're not being told

what's the recommendation. So you don't know what's happening.

So how can the community know what's happening? There's no

word. With all the suspicion, and the history of INS with these

people, undocumented people, they're going to be suspicious.

It seems to me that what we'd want to do is to get the word out

that this is a benefit program that really is working, and it's something that people can take advantage of.

In addition, there's the documentation requirements that you've

heard about today.

We are concerned about, for example, the employment letter.

The regulations have indicated that this employment letter has to

indicate that INS can have access to the employer's records and if

not, he has to sign, under perjury, to state that this is true.

An employer has no obligation to give this letter. And yet under

the law, this is like the most important proof you have to have. If

you don't have it and you go down to INS, they re going to say, this

is no good, it's not good enough. At least that's what we feel right

now.

So, how are we going to deal with that? The INS information

campaign hasn't begun. Employers don't know, under confidentiality, if what they say is going to be used against them, for example,

for tax purposes. There s no real assurance going out to employers,

as I said, that this is confidential.

In addition, if INS were to accept a regular employment letter•I

mean, there are penalties for providing false information•just a

regular employment letter, under the present regulations saying

that any other relevant document would be helpful•if they took

that with the totality of the case, I think it should be given a lot of
80

weight. And right now we don't think it would be given any weight

at all.

The concerns here that I think Mr. Helton has mentioned about

the documentation are our very concerns. We have many people

applying, coming to the Qualified Designated Entities, many people

starting the process. But we don't want to file cases unless they are

like super good at this point, because we are very concerned.

Some people are afraid to come forward. Those people who are

there, we're not counseling them to rush in right now, because

their case may be denied, unless it's prepared much better. These

are expensive applications. If they have to go back and file an

appeal, people don't have that money.

Just a couple of comments about family unity. A question has

been raised today about the spouses and children. There's no national policy on what's going to happen to the spouse and children

of a person who is eligible. There is a confidentiality point that Ms.

Petersen brought out that this information can't be used against

another family member. But that's not being brought out in any

information campaign, for which there was a lot of money appropriated, I understand.

Also, under the family unity, I think Congress should look very

carefully at how INS defined family unity. When you go back and

look at the same language, you know, there's a very generous

waiver provision that Congress implemented. Same thing from the

refugee bill. It was looked to be a very generous waiver for mistakes that people had made prior, because they know that many

people who are undocumented use fraud or whatever, not criminal

matters, but other types of violations of immigration laws.

Well, that's why tney enacted this. But the family unity is so

narrow. It's more narrow than most other waivers under other aspects of present immigration law. All this is getting a message out.

We're hearing one thing, but we're thinking maybe that the implementation is going to be something else.

INS personnel, we're giving them the benefit of the doubt, but

remember, all INS personnel have been, on these legalization programs, the working people are, many people are newly hired. They

don't have the experience, the flexibility that can deal with tins

kind of documentation.

And they're dealing with perhaps unrealistic expectations for

these people. How can these people be trained to give a realistic

expectation of what these people can come up with on documentation?

Congressman, you mentioned about the registry, and saying,

you're here before 1972, you should be eligible, if you get it. Same

problem with legalization. You're here before 1972, and you've

been here illegally, if you can more or less show it, INS has certain

tests for fraud, they can look into it, fine.

It's not being implemented that way. We're seeing, we're having

to document months, each month. And it's not going to work that

way because we have to spend hours and hours doing that. We

don't have the resources.

So that's part of the problem.

Mr. GARCIA. Mr. Muzaffar Chishti.

[Mr. Haggerty's full statement follows.]
g STATESg

CONFERENCE

81

NORTHEAST AREA OFFICE

MIGRATION AIVO REFUGEE SERVICES

12S0 BROADWAY • NEW YORK. N. Y. lOOOl • 212/563-4300

CABLE AOORESS: NYCATHWEUTESTIMONY OF JAMES J. HAGGERTY, ESQ., BEFORE THE

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES; SUBCOMMITTEE ON CENSUS

AND POPULATION CONCERNING THE IMPACT OF LEGALIZATION

PROCESS ON THE COUNTING UNDOCUMENTED ALIENS.

6/1/87

First, I want to thank the committee members for this

opportunity to present the concerns of our voluntary agency,

the United States Catholic Conference, in reference to the

implementation and impact of the Immigration, Reform and

Control Act of 1986. In particular, today I would like to

focus on the implementation of the legalization provisions of

this act.

The various Catholic Church dioceses in the United

States have appointed legalization directors and in

conjunction with the United States Catholic Conference have

set up legalization programs throughout the country. Many of

our dioceses under the umbrella of the Catholic Conference

have been designated as Qualified Designated Entities. He

hope that our combined efforts will contribute in a

significant way to carrying out the purpose of the

legalization provisions and we hope many other qualified

groups will join in meeting this massive challenge.

We look forward to working together with both public and

private groups to assure the success of this program.

The legalization provisions of this immigration bill are

clearly remedial in nature. Remedial statutes should be

liberally interpreted, are inclusive by nature and should be

implemented in the same spirit. Congress clearly intended

that those who are eligible for this benefit should have a

fair opportunity to apply.

Our review of the final regulations and our

conversations with INS policy makers up to this time have

raised concerns about whether INS will implement

these remedial provisions of the statute in the way intended

by Congress. If INS does not implement the statute in the

manner intended by Congress, many undocumented aliens

eligible for the program will never obtain the legalization

benefit. We are urging that INS reconsider some of their
82

regulations and implementing policies so that those who are

clearly eligible for the benefits of legalization have a fair

opportunity to apply.

Under the regulations and the implementing procedures as

explained to us so far, many individuals who are clearly

eligible for legalization will be prevented from benefiting

from the statute.

Specifically, INS, we believe, will severely limit an

applicant's opportunity to have a fair interview for

legalization and, in addition, INS has made the requirements

for documentation excessively burdensome and restrictive.

Finally, INS's narrow definition of "family unity" will

severely limit the number of applicants who would otherwise,

be eligible for waivers where applicable. The effect of these

policies and regulations will be a large denial rate and a

clear message to the undocumented community discouraging them

from applying. The small numbers of individuals who are so

far applying for legalization at the INS offices may in part

be a be a direct result of these policies. Today I will focus

on the fair interview issue, the burdensome documentary

requirements and the unjustifiable limitation on waivers.

He have been informed that an applicant who appears at

an INS interview in New York for legalization and who does

not sufficiently prove by his documentary evidence continuous

residence in the United States, at least in the opinion of

the interviewing officer, will not be given an opportunity to

return and supplement his case.

No matter how much training is shared by INS personnel

and QDE personnel, there will be borderline cases and

differences of opinion on the issue of how much documentation

is enough. At a minimum, an applicant should be given an

opportunity to return and supplement his/her case. It is

regular INS policy in other cases to give an applicant form

1-72 which details exactly what documentation is missing. INS

should follow this same procedure in its legalization

interview. INS's own manual suggests this procedure but there

is no national policy on this point. Not only should an

applicant be given an opportunity to return and supplement

his or her case but the applicant should be specifically

instructed on where the documentation in the case is

deficient. Specificity is required here so that if a case is

denied there will be an opportunity on appeal to review the

reasonableness of the INS officer's request and whether or

not the applicant made a sufficient showing. The INS program

is computerized and the Service rightfully wants to run an

efficient program. Its concern for efficiency, however,

should not'result'in the denial of an applicant's opportunity

to a fair interview.

At the end of the interview the applicant should be
83

told what recommendation ia being given on hia or her case.

In thia way, word will reach the community that thia ia a

valid program, not aimply a trap for unwary aliens.

In addition, INS haa made the requirement for employment

proof excesaively burdensome and restrictive.

We are worried that thia requirement will prove a

significant impediment to the smooth functioning of the

legalization process.

The form employment letter which must be submitted in

the event that W-2 forms, pay stubs, etc. are not available

ia very burdensome. This form letter requires the employer to

certify a) whether the information was taken from official

company records and b) whether the INS can have access to

them. Moreover, if the records are unavailable an affidavit

must be submitted by the employer stating the reasons for

such unavailability.

This constitutes an extremely onerous burden to bear for

anyone who has been working in this country while in unlawful

status. Employers who have engaged undocumented aliens will

be extremely reluctant to expose their records to the INS or

for that matter to any other governmental agency. The party

punished by this reluctance will not be the unwilling

employer; it will be the otherwise eligible alien who is

deprived of a reasonable method of proving that he was

working in the United States during the statutory period and

is therefore entitled as a matter of right to relief under

the Act. If INS's information campaign would begin and

atrongly assure employers that such information provided to

them will be confidential and cannot be used for any other

purpose, this may assuage the fears of many employers. If INS

will accept employment letters which do not meet this

stringent standard under the "any other relevant document"

and give it aerious consideration, this would also be very

beneficial.

This requirement is hopelessly incompatible with the

language and legislative history of the Immigration Reform

and Control Act of 1986. The statute is clearly remedial in

nature; where relief is at all possible the method of

documenting continuous residency and financial

responsibility should be facilitated. This outlook is clearly

spelled out in the legislative history of the statute which

provides in material part as follows:

"Unnecessarily rigid demands for proof of eligibility

for legalization could seriously impede the success of the

legalization effort. Therefore, the Committee expects the INS

to incorporate flexibility into the standards for

legalization eligibility, permitting the use of affidavits of

credible witnesses and taking into consideration the special
84

circumstances relating to persons previously living

clandestinely in this country."

Finally, many excludable applicants who would be

eligible for a waiver under the broad and generous waiver

provisions of legalization may be barred from such relief

because of INS's unjustifiable narrow definition of the

term "family unity". The legalization provisions of this

statute are clearly remedial in nature and, with this in

mind. Congress incorporated broad language in the waiver

sections of the bill. IMS, however, is trying to narrow the

opportunity for applicants to apply for waivers by

incorporating in the regulations a very restrictive

definition of the term "family unity". Under the final

regulations "family u.-.ity" means "n.air.taining the family

group without deviation or change. The family group shall

include the spouse, unmarried minor children who are not

members of some other household, and parents who reside

regularly in the household of the family group." This

definition is contrary to the plain meaning of the statutory

language. By constructing such a limited definition of a

family group. Ills will be able to significantly limit the

number of applicant s eligible fcr waivers.

In addition HIS has no policy of what will happen to

spouses and children of applicants who do not qualify in

their cwn right fcr the benefit of legalization. Many

applicants may be afraid to apply for this reason.

I hope that Congress will urge HIS to reconsider these

policies a.-.d regulations s: that this legislation will be

implemented in manner Congress intended.

^-jspcctfully submitted,

Ja.-:es J. Haggerty. Esq.

Legalization riroct-ir

Jlcrth East Region

Jnited States Cithslic

Cc-r.ierance
85

TESTIMONY OF MUZAFFAR CHISHTI, DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL LADIES GARMENT WORKERS UNION [ILGWU] IMMIGRATION

PROJECT

Mr. CHISHTI. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. My name is

Muzaffar Chishti. I direct the Immigration Project at the International Ladies Garment Workers Union which is also a national

Qualified Designated Entity which is serving members of the union

and their immediate family all across the country. A large project

of ours is in California, in the district of the present Chairman of

this Committee.

I really had thought about talking only about the issues of legalization as they concern the 1990 Census. But since we heard a good

part of the testimony here from the Immigration Service relating

to how this legalization program was being implemented, I can't

resist making two or three observations about that.

Especially, as you know, the Immigration Service called a large

number of national Qualified Designated Entities last week and essentially told us•it was half reprimand and half suggestion•that

the private sector is not living up to its expectations in implementing this program.

They're unfortunately sending the message that there is something wrong in our public education effort and that we in the private sector are not living up to our expectations. It's an irony that

the Immigration Service which so far has tried to round these

people up and deport them, is now busy saying that they are very

eager to legalize them and all we have to do is get them to their

offices.

The misfortune of this policy is that the Immigration's attitude

towards collecting people into their offices right now is a managerial decision. It's been seen as a cash flow problem.

The Assistant Commissioner for Legalization has already threatened certain legalization offices will be closed, because as you

know, the Immigration Service refused to seek any supplemental

appropriation from Congress for legalization, claiming that this

should be a self-financed program, with the result that they have

borrowed $125 million against future appropriations, and for that

they have to have a projected 3.9 million people who are legalized,

which figures up to 16,000 people a day.

That's the projection on which they have opened their offices,

have the furniture there, staffed those offices.

Unfortunately, they are not living up to that expectation. About

27,000 people have come forth in the first three weeks. But they

see it as a purely cash flow problem.

Our answer to that is that if the Immigration Service made those

projections, they were entirely theirs. We haven't subscribed to

those projections, and we never subscribed to their projections as to

how long it takes to do a case.

It's taking an incredibly long period of time from the point a

person walks into your office to actually the time he can submit an

application for legalization. And the National Qualified Designated

Entities are right in being cautious about it and submitting as

much information as one has to submit to the Service so that these

people are not denied applications later on.
86

Most of the concerns as to why people are not coming forward

you've heard from my colleagues here. A couple of them which

haven't been mentioned.

A lot has to do with the employers' cooperation. If we know anything from the legalization programs of other countries of the

world, the Canadians and the French and the Argentinians and the

Venezuelans will tell you that those programs failed because of

lack of cooperation from employers.

My fear is that is precisely why this program may also fail. And

that has a lot to do with our imposing employer sanctions at the

same time that we offer legalization.

How would you expect an employer whose only connection with

Jose Torres in 1976 is one of exploitation•the only thing he knows

about this person is that he exploited him for six months and paid

him under the table. And now we expect that he will go back and

get an affidavit from that employer that he worked for him, and at

the bottom of that affidavit testify that he is willing to come to the

Immigration Officer and testify to the accuracy of those statements?

I mean, that's kind of an Alice in Wonderland logic that we operate in the regulations, and that's unfortunately operating most in

the employer documentation.

Most of these people, in the absence of W-2s, pay stubs, have to

depend on an employer affidavit, and employer affidavits are just

not coming forward.

The last point on the employer affidavit is that we have had no

indication so far from the Internal Revenue Service there will be

no repercussions on employers. Most employers that I have talked

to are very concerned about this. There is no tax amnesty as we

know, and employers are very concerned that when they give an

affidavit of this kind, it's going to filter on somehow to the Immigration Service and they're going to be hit with past tax liability.

Of course there's a confidentiality provision in the Act. We can

hammer them on their heads, but that's not what the employers

believe. What we have tried to tell the INS is if we could get a joint

statement issued by the IRS and the INS with certain kind of guarantees that people•that employers may have, we might be able to

get a little more cooperation.

Just a couple of things on 1990 Census and legalization.

I think we should compare it with what happened in 1980. I

mean, it's ironic that we had this meeting in 1980 exactly in this

room when we were trying to convince the Immigration Service not

to raid the workplaces at that time, to get cooperation.

We had a problem in 1980. I think in 1980 we at least managed

to get some undocumented population to come forward. I think

what we will have in 1990 is that those people who are not going to

be legalized are going to be much less enthusiastic to come forward, because we have already drawn a curtain, by passing the legalization program of 1986.

We have now said clearly that there are two kinds of undocumented people. One we would really like to stay here. And the

other, who really, we would like to depart.
87

As Ms. Petersen said in her own testimony, the expectation of

the Service is that these people, because of the employer sanction

mechanism, will voluntarily leave.

If we know anything about the population, they're not going to

voluntarily leave.

But the emphasis is that these people should be kept away from

the United States, which includes keeping them away from the

Census, which must inevitably mean that this bunch of people are

going to be undercounted.

So we obviously are going to have a silencing effect on a sizable

population in New York. We're going to have the same problem because of the family unity problem, especially in this population.

Then on the issue of raids. I mean, I find it really odd, especially

for the Census Bureau people to believe that just because the INS

says that they have changed their policies of not raiding residential

facilities, that that is going to have an effect on the population.

This population does not go by what the press releases of the Immigration Service or the Census Bureau say. They go by perceptions. And perceptions are incredibly bad. I have to defend people

who are raided at work places all the time. That is their fear.

Work place raids are continuing. And if they continue at the time

of the Census, we are not going to have a decent Census count.

On a positive note, I think we should at least gain something

from what we learned in the 1980 Census. I think it will be good if

we can, through some Qualified Entities, and we at the ILGWU are

willing to perform some bit of service in that regard, through some

good data collection, we get some social characteristics of the

people that we have legalized, if we overcome obviously the confidentiality concerns and to the extent that they are in our office

and feel a little safe, we can collect a little more data on the people

who are legalized. And if we compare that with the characteristics

that the Census Bureau projected for people who were legalized in

1980 and learn something from that, we may be able to make a

little more educated projections for the 1990 Census.

I think some sort of retroactive determination of the accuracy of

the 1980 Census may be done by doing a better collection on the

people that we legalize. And if we can offer any help, we'll be glad

to do that.

Thank you.

Mr. GARCIA. Thank you. And I thank the three of you. The three

of you were sitting here during the period of time that Ms. Peterson from Immigration was seated, was testifying. Would you be

kind enough to tell us what questions we failed to ask her?

Mr. HELTON. Congressman, first I would mention some of the

issues that I raised about the legalization process. All those nittygritty issues which I think are very important in getting the message out. We felt that once people started getting approved, the

message would get out that this program is working, it s a real program and it's going to offer a benefit. Some of those problems

weren't brought out. That's one point.

Mr. HAGGERTY. I'm not sure if it's your specific question, but it

seems to me the question of plans in New York for a multi-lingual

campaign for publicity purposes, it seems to me also the time line
88

for forms in other than English will be available for those who are

picking up information at these sites.

Whether any arrangements are being made to designate additional civil surgeons to perform medical examinations. Whether additinal Qualified Designated Entities will be designated by the

Service, and when. I think these are just close implementation

questions that the local authorities should be in a position to

answer.

Mr. CHISHTI. Let me, briefly. I do spend some part of my time in

the Legalization Offices, A, to file, also to determine how the process is going.

I think we must say to the credit of INS that at least the atmosphere at the legalization office is the best we have seen in any Immigration Offices. They are really much better than any Immigration Office I have ever seen. They're doing their best to put the

best smile forward. I think they really want to get a lot of people

legalized. I think if nothing else, because of the money problem,

they really believe they have to get $185 an application. I mean,

it's a very cynical way of looking at public policy, but it happens to

be true.

The problem is that we in the private sector have to be sure that

after we pay them $185, our people who we represent are not going

to be denied, not only because that's bad for them, but it doesn't

reflect too well on people who represented them.

There's one bottleneck which can easily be cleared, which I think

would help get a lot of people into the legalization offices. And we

have tried to tell them formally and informally in the last two

weeks. And Mr. Haggerty referred to it at some length, and I'll

repeat it to the extent I have talked with him last week.

You bring in your application to the Legalization Office, it all

goes to Vermont, as you heard. People in New York do not adjudicate these things. They don't deny or approve an application. They

just recommend denial and approval. The application is granted at

the regional processing facility in Vermont.

All they will do is they will tell you whether an application is

denied or approved. And then you will have an administrative

appeal process.

What we have said is that it would help tremendously if we imposed an intermediate stage in this that instead of the regional

processing facility just telling you whether the application is

denied or approved, they would just send a notice to tell you at

least an intent to deny on the basis of certain lack of documentation.

Look, you know, you presented a pay stub only for 1983, not for

1982, and give us something like 60 days to correct the documentation problem. I really don't know what the big deal with that is.

That happens in immigration procedures here in this building all

the time, in nonlegalization cases, as they find some documentation

is lacking, they give you an opportunity to correct the documentation process.

That's what I think emboldens a lot of Qualified Designated

Agencies which are now being very cautious in sort of collecting a

lot of documentation that if they go with minimal documentation

and then remain assured that they will have an opportunity to cor-
rect the documentation issue later on, that would I think start

bringing in more people into this thing.

And that's a very simple suggestion and very easy to implement.

Mr. GARCIA. Thank you very much.

Because we're dealing with a new program, as it relates to the

three of you who are interested in getting as many people legalized

as possible, as we are.

If you were sitting here and we were sitting there, what would

you tell us and what suggestions would you give us as it relates to

what we should be doing to assure that we get as many people as

possible legalized?

Mr. HELTON. I think the obvious problem at this point would be

the documentation question.

The regulations to some extent limit the flexibility of the authorities on that question, but not always. There is certainly room

for generous interpretation.

It seems to me that close oversight over the onerous character of

the documentation being required to present applications and have

status granted would be the best that could be done at this point.

I would say the second best approach would be what was suggested by Mr. Chishti. If legalistic approaches are to prevail, then at

least tell people earlier in the process that they're in trouble and

let them have a chance to supplement their documentation or to

look to other sources of documentation.

But I still think that the most important point in the process at

this point is the documentation bottleneck. People are inherently

incapable of providing the kind of documentation in many cases

that will be required if the current atmosphere and approach obtains.

So I would see that as the key to liberalizing the process. Looking at legalization as more of a simple registry procedure.

Mr. HAGGERTY. I don't think that the message is getting back,

first of all not to the QDEs, and then certainly not to the community, that this is a benefit program.

And I think the two issues that we brought out today, the documentation issue plus getting a way to notify someone what's going

to happen with his application when he applies. Does he need more

documents, is he just going to be denied?

That would be, I think that would really clear up a lot and move

things along a lot faster.

And I think even under the present regulations, they can interpret. I'd add one thing to that. I'd say it's understandable as Mr.

Chisti has said that you know, the atmosphere in the Legalization

Offices. These are new people. They really I think do want to legalize people.

The problem may be in the training. These are a lot of new

people, I believe, hired for this program, and they don't want to

have the idea they just let somebody in, I want to really make sure

it's a good application. I think there has to be a little reality training, too. You know, what actually is possible.

And I think the only way to do that is to sit down with the QDEs

and talk about what are people really able to come up with.
90

And if there's a problem, they need more documentation, sit

down with us and talk about it. Don't just say we're going to recommend denial of your case.

We are very flexible, and seeing what we can try to do realistically. We're concerned also with fraud problems. And that's INS'

major consideration. But I think they're over-emphasizing that and

they're making our job extremely difficult.

Mr. CHISHTI. Mr. Chairman, I really would look for two very

practical pieces of assistance from Congress.

First, I think we have to not let INS get scared about the

number of people who are coming in, or the lack of number of

people who are coming in in the first three weeks. I think there's a

certain amount of hysteria generating in INS that not enough

people are coming, and they are threatening to close down offices.

I think any program which is judged, a program which is inherently suspect, to judge that on the first three weeks, and make decisions about closing down offices or cutting down staff, is going to

be disastrous for this program.

I think it is just absolutely too early to make any judgment

about the failure or success of this program. And they should not

tell us on the basis of those projections that they will close down

offices. That monitoring by Congress I think would tremendously

help.

Second, I also really think that we should convey the message as

clearly as we can to the INS that Congress never intended this to

be a self-financing program. Congress intended this to be a generous program and part of that was that some money would have to

be expended to make it successful.

They have denied our request that we would help them in lobbying on certain issues because they are absolutely, the Commissioner is absolutely determined to say that this program should pay for

itself.

If he sticks to that rule, then we will have some Legalization Offices closing down. And that will happen unfortunately in remote

areas where there is not representation available on any other

issue.

The third is I think it would help if you could provide some brokerage function between the INS and the IRS. I really don't want

to overemphasize that. If we can get the two agencies to issue joint

statements on the issue of confidentiality and employer's liability

for taxes, that would help a lot in terms of alleviating some fears.

Mr. GARCIA. Of the number of people so far that you know of

that have applied for citizenship, how many are white, how many

are Hispanic and how many are black?

Any number; any ballpark figure?

Is the overwhelming majority white; the overwhelming majority

people of color?

Mr. CHISHTI. I can only tell you that when I go to the legalization

office, I look at the lists, the case assignment list of each legalization officer. And I was quite fascinated on Friday afternoon that

they ranged from all parts of the world. I was really quite surprised.

There were Egyptians there, there were Israelis there, there

were Irish there. I think in this city people are stunned as to how
91

many Israelis are going to be legalized, how many Irish are going

to be legalized. I think that's the population that we never thought

of, because the stereotype continues, that it's Mexican, Dominican.

On that chart I saw on Friday with three Legalization Officers,

there was not a single Mexican.

Mr. TOWNS. I just wanted, for the record, you said flexible and

efficient manner. Would you sort of explain what you mean by

flexible and efficient?

Mr. HELTON. Well, by flexible, I mean taking into account some

of the comments that I made previously and that Mr. Haggerty has

made. Making sure that those responsible for reviewing the cases

interpret the law and apply it in a flexible and realistic way, and

not require of people documentation or evidence that is unrealistic

and unreasonable to expect from people in terms of prior employment or employers' letters or things of that character.

At some point, people will just not reasonably be able to present

more than they can in terms of the needed evidence.

In terms of efficiency, I look to things like the problem with the

low number of civil surgeons. The whole process could be made

more efficient by pressing to expand the pool of civil surgeons from

whom examinations can be taken. Or again, providing forms in the

native language. That certainly would facilitate the application

process.

It's clear from what oversight that we've done at this point that

there is a lot of activity occurring at the sites of these Qualified

Designated Entities, at least many of them, and certainly the largest ones. But not much activity at the Legalization Offices.

So people are preparing their cases. They're handling their cases,

in the words of one worker at a Qualified Designated Entity, like a

lawsuit. They're looking at preparing the case and documenting it

like a major piece of litigation.

And that, obviously, is not going to be available to very many

people. That approach will stymie a lot of people in the process.

And I think it's completely inconsistent with the notion that

Congress had in considering this amnesty program.

Mr. DYMALLY. That wasn t the intent of the law at all.

Mr. HELTON. That's right.

Mr. HAGGERTY. If I could just comment on that, there was a definition in the House for what flexibility would be. It's from the legislative history. It said unnecessary rigid demands for proof of eligibility for legalization could seriously impede the success of the legalization effort. And therefore, the committee expects the INS to

incorporate flexibility into the standards for legalization eligibility,

permitting use of affidavits of credible witnesses and taking into

consideration the special circumstances relating to persons previously living clandestinely in this country.

Mr. TOWNS. Thank you very much. And let me just comment,

Mr. Chairman, on the fact that I think you gave superb testimony,

all three of you. Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to reflect that. Thank

you very much.

Mr. DYMALLY. I was about to say, Mr. Towns, that Mr. Garcia

was also saying the same thing to me on the left that you were

saying on the right about the quality of the testimony given by the

three of them. And thank you very much.
92

We want to have the option of sending you some questions in the

mail, for your further response. Thank you very much.

Mr. GARCIA. Mr. Joseph Etienne is with the Haitian Centers

Council; Mr. Stan Mark, Director of the Asian-American Legal Defense Fund; Dr. Charles W. Ephraim; and Dr. Roy Bryce-LaPorte,

Professor, College of Staten Island.

TESTIMONY OF JOSEPH ETIENNE, HAITIAN CENTERS COUNCIL

Mr. ETIENNE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We from the Carribbean community appreciate very much the opportunity that you

give to our group to express our views on the legislation.

We feel we have to thank you for that opportunity. My name is

Joseph Etienne. I'm the Executive Director of the Haitian Centers

Council, which is an umbrella group of eight community-based centers located in Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, Spring Valley and

Stanford, Connecticut.

Our objective is to have Haitians adjusting to the new milieu.

I am also a member of the Governor's Advisory Committee for

Black Affairs and Co-Chairman of the Caribbean and African Subcommittee.

From the outset, let me say that although we are making every

effort to assist undocumented Haitians who are qualified under the

new Immigration Reform and Control Act, I must say that the legislation has not lived up to expectations. And therefore, the impact

will be negative on the 1990 Census.

A few examples.

That new immigration bill was supposed to to be a solution to

the trials and tribulations of many undocumented immigrants•a

vast, invisible section of the working people in this country.

We have a few problems with the INS. First of all, we have the

outreach program. There is a lack of adequate information by INS.

For example, the INS staff is not fully familiar with the application form. We have people who stand on line for two hours, and

then they are told to go outside and the form will be there. Once

they get there, after one hour, they say well, go inside, we don't

have the form.

Once they went back inside, they wait for an hour and then they

had only a few forms. And we even send people to request the

other forms, which we could fill, to request forms from different offices of the Immigration.

The first week of that program, when someone spent two hours

in that line for that "order form", we were told at the end, we

don't have the order form, and therefore you have to send a letter

to Washington requesting to buy those forms by package, they have

100 forms for $27, or $15 dollars, based on quantity.

The second is that INS has very few, if" any, bilingual staff to

answer inquiries from undocumented aliens. And many times when

you get the form they give you the wrong form.

We have people who go for legalization when they should have

received the 1-687, they were handed the 1-485 for adjustment.

And when they go back to fill that form, we find out that's not

the right form, and they have to go back the next day to hopefully

get the right application.
93

We are quite concerned about no INS Legalization Office in

Brooklyn where we have the largest Carribbean community in the

city, in the state.

And another aspect we have is the documentation. As you mentioned before, we have people, for example, from the Carribbean

community who came with what we call "decollage." That means

in Port-au-Prince you pay $1,000 and they give you a passport, they

put your picture on that passport. When you land at Kennedy Airport, someone walks in there, you pay them $1,000 and they

remove the passport from you, remove your pictures, send the passport back to Haiti, and maybe 10 or 20 people would come on the

same passport.

Now, these people have been living here for five, ten years, and

they have no documentation to substantiate their stay here.

For example, Saturday I went to a church where about 200

people were there and one lady came to me, she said, I have someone working in my house for eight years, and she came in under

that process, and all she has•she went to the doctor two or three

times. And she has no passport. How can she document her status,

her residency here? And we know that is going to be very difficult.

In addition to that, we have realized that we have a problem

with the appeal process.

In that regulation, it is stated that incomplete application will be

returned, or denied. It is not clear what do they mean by that.

Does that mean if you don't have enough documentation to substantiate your staying here or does that mean you failed to answer

one of the questions? It's not clear what is meant by that.

And many people cannot take that chance, because once your application is in, your chance to appeal is very limited and that also

is why we have a large segment of the population that refuses to

apply.

We even have people who came to withdraw their application,

because for example they told us that nationwide not too many

people have applied, we Haitians therefore should wait longer to

see what's going to happen. And we are very concerned in the Haitian community and the Carribbean community about that situation.

Furthermore, we realize there are not enough medical doctors at

the community level that can provide the medical examination.

People have no place to go, and the few clinics they can attend,

they don't have bilingual staff to go through the medical process.

Lastly, in terms of the QDEs, we have seen people that qualify as

QDEs who have no credibility in the community, and they just

apply and INS is too happy to provide them with that status. But

yet, the community people, the undocumented people who have

been there for years, will not go to some of the QDEs because they

see them as almost like the tax people's process where you go there

and once the tax season is over, you have no way to find out where

your documentation is.

In addition to that I think many of them must pay a fee, not the

filing fee, which costs $185; they also have to pay maybe between

$75 and $100 to fill the application. Furthermore, they have to pay

for translation of documentation, like baptismal certificate, birth

certificate, and so on.

77-631 0-87-4
94

And another concern is the people who have been working off

the books, people who work for eight or ten years and many times

they do not pay any taxes and yet when they ask for an affidavit,

the employer won't give it to them. These people have no way to

document their stay here.

Another point we have on that, we have a lot of people saying, if

you go on the Parkway, on Northside Avenue, Flatbush, you see a

lot of those stores saying, we fill immigration forms.

Mr. TOWNS. We know a lot about that.

Mr. ETIENNE. We'll have to take him for a tour.

So those issues we have. In addition to that, we said there is not

enough centers in Brooklyn.

Vis-a-vis the Census, we feel that those taking the Census will

continue to contend with the fact of a large undercounted population, underground population.

The failure to count those people results in the denial of federal

funds in social, medical and educational services to neighborhoods

and cities in which undocumented immigrants reside.

Reapportionment may occur because Census figures indicate that

a district has less population when in fact the population of these

areas has grown. Both public policy and planning will be undermined by undercount of the population.

Also, we should mention that those who came after January,

1982, you can be sure they are not going to stand up and be counted.

Undocumented people become a vast reservoir of unreported

physical and medical problems, many are symptoms brought on by

their invisible status. They become a body within the body politic

who are taxed without representation. We estimate that about

200,000 Haitians and many other thousands of immigrants will not

be counted and the statutes will not reflect their numbers or be responsive to their needs.

Since so many of the immigrants are black and brown, the result

is that racial minorities are not counted or represented.

I must emphasize that the only realistic way to locate and count

illegal immigrants is to develop new legislation which grants blanket amnesty to all those who by their very presence are proving

that they have made a place for themselves in this society. Such a

blanket amnesty has proven successful in Canada. Nothing short of

this will lead to an accurate Census in 1990. The assurances that

that Census will not be turned over to INS are necessary but will

be insufficient to reassure people whose future rests on what happens with information they give out.

The new immigration bill, Mr. Chairman, must be linked to an

acknowledgement of the power of such factors as poverty and the

lack of economic opportunity in other countries. Only by responding with appropriate foreign aid and development assistance will

this legislature begin to put an end to continued immigration and

underground population. Otherwise, we'll have to agree with Congressman Leo Panetta that we have created a subculture in our society, one that has no rights and no protection. And I will add, no

place in the Federal Census.
95

The time has come, Mr. Chairman, to create the conditions by

which all undocumented immigrants are free to stand up and be

counted.

Thank you.

TESTIMONY OF DR. ROY BRYCE-LAPORTE, PROFESSOR,

COLLEGE OF STATEN ISLAND

Mr. LAPORTE. I'm Roy Bryce-Laporte and I am presently at the

College of Staten Island. I thank you for having given me an opportunity to speak, and remind you that this is not my first opportunity to have spoken to this Subcommittee.

It was then headed by Representative Garcia, who I'm sure in

addition to his own expertise and responsibility also has the sensitivity derived from a background with parent from abroad, who

even though not in a legal sense immigrants, are from Puerto Rico,

part of an overseas extension to the United States.

And I think it's fitting that its present Chairman is one who has

had the immigrant experience and has since then sought to make

his contributions as an immigrant and a citizen to the improvement of this country and to some of the solutions that immigration

requires.

Prior to this, my concerns with immigration have largely related

to my work at the the Smithsonian where I was trying to interest

my colleagues in the social sciences to return to the study of immigration as a subject matter, really with the intention that sometime in the future they would have been able to make the kinds of

contributions to agencies such as the Census, faced with the the

vexing problem of undercounting and to the politicians and policy

makers in terms of better ways to identify their populations and to

identify the programs that are presented by those populations.

I am at present with the City University where another attempt

is being made to do the same, this time through an institute which

hopefully will try to complement some of the kinds of research that

are likely to be either restricted or deemphasized in government

research agencies.

I want to speak briefly about my•the change of views or at least

my viewpoint on the subject after five years.

Five years ago, when I stood before this Committee, my concern

was to advise against the passing of a bill prematurely, without

having given it sufficient time to be deliberated.

At this point, I would at least concede that the bill was much

more deliberated than before, and to that extent, it is an improvement over what had been stated before. That does not mean in any

way that I consider the Control and Reform Act of 1986 a perfect

bill, one without reasons to be criticized and to be improved.

There are some points that I made then that I think I'd like to

make again. Because I think they still hold.

One is that illegal immigration, which seems to be the primary

objective of the reforms and controls of the 1986 law, is closely tied

to other forms of immigration. And, therefore, any new immigration reform must not only incorporate and relate illegal immigration to general immigration, but it must address the general immi-
96

gration picture facing the country as well as anticipate the problems

that the Act itself will bring about.

Two, immigration, whether legal or illegal, is a complex phenomenon in terms of what it represents, as well as the levels on

which it expresses itself. It is both individual and collective; it is

subjective, it is objective, and in the long run, the complexity of the

immigration process must be reflected in any set of policies that

one proposes to use for its solution. And that means to say that one

has to deal with a multiplicity of levels of jurisdiction, of social organization and implementation.

And finally, immigration is not always an issue. It is always,

however, an ongoing phenomenon in the United States. And quite

often we get confused between issues that we have created sometime justifiably, sometimes in panic, and immigration itself.

Then we respond to those issues, creating problems that we did

not anticipate.

In many cases what we do therefore is to come out with solutions

that are off-balance, that are counter-productive, that are conflicting, that miss the point.

I would suggest that any truly democratic effort•and to be

democratic does not necessarily mean to be ineffective or to be

slow, particularly if we want to concede that there are issues related to it, must deal with all the parties that are involved, or to be

affected in an equal and just way.

And that means that in addition to the various levels of government and to the standard members of society that you have to deal

with the minorities, you have to deal with the immigrants themselves, including the illegals and you have to deal with representatives of various levels of the source countries.

As my colleague has just mentioned, much of immigration is to

be understood as internationally initiated and in many cases it reflects the failure in terms of aids and investments and cooperation

between this country and source countries, and therefore, to deal

with the end without dealing with the source is to likely overlook

the possibility that immigration will continue and if it is discontinued in an abrupt way, that other forms of interventions may be

necessarily resorted to that we would prefer not to have to engage

in again.

Just a few more points on the recent legislation itself, and also

its implications for the problems faced by the Census.

The framers of the 1986 law spoke, when they sought to be benevolent, about eliminating the possibilities of a subclass of aliens

being developed in the country. But in fact, by having introduced a

cutoff point of 1982, they did in fact set the basis for the development of the subclass.

It would seem to me that, radical as it may seem, that in addition to the advice that we want to give to Census and to INS, that I

would like to suggest that you as members of Congress should

again return to your colleagues and consider whether or not an

amendment advancing that amnesty cutoff date to a much later

time would not be possible, insofar as many of the problems that

we are dealing with today would be resolved simply by adding

what my colleague speaks about as a blanket amnesty. I'm not sure

if those are the proper terms. But having introduced that, many of
97

the problems of the subclass, the fraudulence, the apportioning,

labor shortage and all of these will go away. In fact, one of the serious problems you have is that in order to get legalization legislation

passed, we assumed that there were illegal immigrants in extremely large numbers, from particular countries and particular groups.

And it is quite likely that it is only after the process of legalization

that we'll have any inclination of how many illegal immigrants

there are, where they are located, what groups they represent and

what countries they come from.

And even then, given the fact that we never knew the universe,

we will never know whether we are right or wrong. So that in

many ways, that problem could be resolved by a more ambitious

form of amnesty, of course combined with the strengthening of the

borders, which of course this bill has already conceded, and by the

implementation of whatever•depending upon the recommendations made by the commissions suggested by this bill, the implementation of adequate aid, assistance, and improvement of international economic relationships, so that people will not continue to

feel forced or find so many reasons to leave their own countries in

the direction the United States, whether legally or illegally.

There are also some other considerations. The bill recognized to

some extent the multiplicity of levels to be involved and it has

sought to encourage participation of other levels, such as local

levels of government by reimbursements, by study commissions

and so on.

However, I would suggest that the bill itself in terms of its language is so complex and so wordy that it confuses the situation and

in some cases may be producing its own problems of conflict of

laws and conflict of interesst in the process.

I think that we have already started to see some difficulties because they have not considered this well, with the questions of

transfers of status, and the conversion of people here as students

who broke those status limitations and would now like to become

considered for legalization.

And we see problems having to do with questions of revenue

sharing, of apportioning, and definitions that may be moving in the

other diretion.

I think that there is obviously a need for an extension in education period. The period that had been established by INS obviously

was not enough. It needs to continue the educational program,

training program, and monitoring; and it also needs to encourage

some sort of feedback process so that it has some sense of how effective that educational program is going.

In that regard, let me suggest that I think the responsibility is

not only that of INS. To some extent, the benefit of more people

participating in the legalization extends not only to those people

themselves and the INS, the Census or whatever, it also benefits

the politicians as elected officials. And so some of the questions as

to the innovative measures that you are asking of INS, I think

ought to be turned to yourselves as well. Inasmuch as it certainly

benefits you in terms of voting strength, in terms of size of constituency, in terms of defining the services that are involved, it is

incumbent then on you to start to consider what types of new approaches should be used.
98

And I here propose therefore a new level of cooperation between

executive and legislative groups and also a new role and direction

for some institutes such as those that I am involved in in terms of

training people who would be useful in this process.

I think that the framers, at least some members among the

framers of this bill, especially those on the very extreme, took a

very sort of narrow Americanist view of this bill, and the debate

over it.

Their idea to discourage the entry or the further entry of people

who are entering, not only illegally, but people whose entry converted the normal vision and image of the American population•

people who would not be white; people who would not be speaking

English; people who would be coming from countries of lower prestige and lower economic value, lower industrial development and

so on.

And in the process, I think that they failed to have seen the

greater Americanization that took place by way of the prolonging

of the debate. I'm sure that a number of people were penalized in

one way or the other for having participated in the prolonging of

that debate. But in the long run what we have seen that one consequence of the prolongation of the debate is the broadening of the

debate and participation in it.

We have seen a number of people who may have felt outside of

the system, now participating in the system. You have seen that

many of the people who were assumed not to be able to speak English, do speak English sufficiently well, in fact, better, in some

cases, than some of our native students.

We have seen them enter, illegal as they are, enter into the

Armed Forces to participate in defense of this country. And so on.

And it strikes me therefore that we ought to recognize this bill

as an opportunity, and as an index of the possibility of greater

Americanization of the democratic system or process and also as an

opportunity to resolve some of the problems which follow us because of our tendency to separate people and to disenfranchise particular people who do not fit certain types of stereotypes and statuses.

The request of this subcommittee was to speak to the question of

legalization, as it will have implications for the Census.

And I want to say first of all that I have had some opportunity to

work with the people in the Census on a national level in terms of

trying to identify ethnic groups and ancestry and matters of that

kind.

And I would like to say that they have done much of this work

in great earnestness, but perhaps not enough and perhaps not with

enough time, some will say.

The point is that legalization in a sense will resolve some of

those problems, because as I said the legalization will yield and

clarify further some of the information that we did not know then.

Legalization, on the other hand, if it is not done well or if it is

done as if it were a continuation of the control and police system of

the INS, may actually distort reality, discourage participation, because there may be people who would not come forward insofar as

they continue to deal with the psychology that they have developed

relative to the INS.
99

But what is important is that in the process of approaching or

trying to resolve this problem, that the Census at least will take

into account some of the problems encountered by INS and will attempt to engage in the kind of public relation activity that would

encourage rather than discourage people from participating.

It means other things engaging much more on the local level

than perhaps had been done before. It means engaging in innovative things more than they have before. It means using local persons and local agencies more than they have been before.

I have heard questions asked relative to the Catholic Church.

And I know, from my own personal experiences, and associations

with various groups in that Church who are concerned with the

study and the service of immigrants that they represent a formidable source.

But I'd like to advise, of course, that there are other groups and

in some cases other church groups that also ought to be considered,

particularly when you are speaking of the non-Hispanic population

and the non-Southern European population, who are not congregated mainly in that particular organization.

I would want to suggest among other things that when we start

to think about the undercount that we also start to think about the

groups that are being deprived entry because of their having come

into the country later than 1982 and to realize what these groups

are likely to be is people coming out of Central America, people

coming out of the Caribbean area, people coming out of areas

where you have had recent political types of destabilization of one

kind or the other.

And therefore, some sort of sensitivity, either in terms of formula, approach, or interpretation, must be made.

The fact that the politicians, elected officials, and service agencies know that there is an undercount, and even if this undercount

persists, does not provide them with sufficient reason to underserve

their neighborhoods and constituencies.

Rather it should mean that compensation should be made to

serve and represent these locales and constituencies better given the

fact that we assume that there is an undercount.

I would like to end by suggesting that much should be done to

encourage that development of research agencies and research personnel who are more committed to independent study of immigration, who are prepared to deal with it as a phenomenon, not only

as an issue, and therefore are likely to represent for you major

technical sources of information, technique and manpower for helping to resolve some of these problems, not merely of tomorrow, but

of the days after, the future, as well.

[Mr. Bryce-Laporte's full statement follows:]
100

STATEMENT OF

ROY S. BRYCE-LAPORTE

Mr. Chairman:

This is my second appearance in five years before this particular

Sub-committee. And I hope that it portends no more of the

disappointments and disillusionment that I have been experiencing

in the interim but rather a better fate for me and the things I

have been fighting for in the realm of immigration studies.

There are some obvious changes in the circumstances surrounding

my appearances before this body. The venue is different; then it

was Washington, D.C. now it is New York City. The chair is

occupied by different persons) then it was the Honorable (Puerto

Rican-parented) Robert Garcia of this City; now it is you•the

Honorable (Trinidadian-born) Mervyn Dymally of Los Angeles,

California. By way of your ancestries and experiences, both of

you are roost likely to be sensitive to the motivations and causes

behind immigration and the desires and dreams which propel

immigrant peoples to want to excel in their achievements,

progress and contributions in this, their adopted country.

Myself of Panamanian birth, I share an earlier Caribbean ancestry

with both of you; and I have lived in all three U.S. cities

mentioned above as well as several other places in this country

during my own migratory treck. Seeking improvement for myself

and family, pursuing economic stability, professional advancement

and career success, and searching for and creating the

opportunities to make my contributions to my country of

adoption•these activities identify roe with the streams of other

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legal and illegal, "voluntary" and "involuntary", immigrants who

have given strength, wealth and shape to the United States of

America and to its place today in the world.

My job situation has changed somewhat from being the founding

director of The Research Institute on Immigration and Ethnic

Studies of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. to the

organizing director of an institute (or center) on immigrant and

population studies of the City University of New York at the

College of Staten Island. From my perspective, the shift

represents a progression, albeit inadvertent and subtle. In the

first capacity I was trying to rekindle an abandoned interest and

re-create the independent and legitimate role for my fellow

scholars in (1) researching what was then the latest phase of

the process of American immigration and (2) disseminating its

complex implications to the people and policy makers of the

country. In this present situation, my efforts are to try to

create an organization which would facilitate the on-going

research interests of these now rekindled colleagues as well as

the newer students of the people involved; namely, America's

latest immigrants and their American-born offspring. If

successful, it would represent a much needed structure for

carrying out organized research on the concepts, cultures and

changes these newest of Americans bring to their new locations of

settlement and employment and the challenges they present for

their new local governments, either by choice or due to

circumstance.

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Even more significant are the changes in the purpose for my

appearance before this Sub-committee, then and now. Five years

ago it was to offer caution about the premature passing into law

of an early, and in my opinion, insufficiently deliberated or

developed version of the immigration reform and control bill.

Today, it is to share my concerns, perhaps too early, about the

implications of a recently passed, more fully deliberated and, in

my opinion, somewhat improved version of the bill. But the

Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 is by no way a perfect

bill. It has a number of inconsistencies, contradictions and

questionable implications which require prompt attention,

constructive adjustments, and perhaps even some deserved

amendments.

A. Among the points made in my presentation five years ago,

which I would like to summarize for the record of this session

and which I think continue to be relevant here are the following:

1. "Illegal" immigration, the alleged primary objective of the

"reforms" and "controls" of the 1986 law, is closely tied to

other forms of immigration. It is in part a legalistic construct

which can becloud the larger and very intricate relationship it

shares with other forms of immigration even from the same (or

similar) countries or regions. Hence illegal immigration,

whatever the basic problems and violations it may represent in

the first instance, cannot be resolved isolatedly from the larger

movements and conditions of which it is a part. To try to do so

is to risk the emergence of unanticipated secondary problems of

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similar or different order and magnitude, in and outside of the

United States. Therefore, any new immigration reform must not

only incorporate and relate illegal immigration to general/legal

immigration but as it addresses the general immigration picture

facing the country it must anticipate some of the problems it may

introduce by its own enactment.

2. Immigration, whether legal or illegal, is a complex

phenomenon in terms of what it represents as well as the levels

on which it expresses itself. On one hand it is an individual or

collective subjective perception, desire or will. On another

hand it is an expression of objective inequality (and sometimes

injustice) in human conditions, on various levels of sustained

contact and relationships, i.e. global, regional, bi-national,

national, local and even interpersonal. This complexity must

have correspondence in the realms of legislation, policy-making

and implementation. Therefore, it must be reflected on each

level. The interconnections which need to be coordinated among

the various levels of decision making, governance, service

responsibilities, and protection of rights must also be

reflected. Clearly some details and implementations will have to

be formulated in the field of actual confrontation with the

general public. But given the complex nature of the immigration

process, any legislative or policy reform of significant

magnitude or importance will have to encompass and transcend

various levels of jurisdiction, social organization and

implementation.
104

3. In American historical reality, immigration is not always an

issue but it has always been an on-going phenomenon. To the

extent that it is an issue it deserves not only to be fully

understood but also to be fully deliberated by, or at least from

the objective and subjective positions of, all the Interested

parties. This, I was taught, is democratic, just and intelligent

policy-making•the American way. To be democratic need not mean

to be ineffective nor slow; it should mean, however, the

guarantee of equal, full and free representation, participation

and justice for the governed. In such a context the failure to

develop policy from a broad, realistic and sensitive orientation

which transcends stated or specific issues may lead to unfair,

unbalanced, counter productive, wasteful and deceptive

consequences in both short and long-run terms. Therefore, not

only immigration legislation and policy decisions themselves but

the process of their formulation should be open and broad enough

to create a sense of confidence and identification for all those

sectors which will be affected by the law, its requirement and

restrictions. This should include then the immigrants, in this

case illegal/undocumented ones too, and representation from their

source countries.

I am pleased to see that some of these considerations which I had

put forward (See full text in Hearings of December 9, 1982,

Serial No. 97-55; Washington, D.C.; U.S. Government Printing

Office, 1983 p. 29-34) were reflected in the version of the bill

that was eventually passed into law in 1986.

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B. With respect to that Act of 1986, the subject of our scrutiny

and suggestions today, I wish to make the following observations:

1. The franters of the bill established as one of its objectives

the removal of a growing underclass of exploited foreign workers

within the borders of the United States. Yet, the bill by the

establishment of the 1982 cut-off date has created the

pre-condition and given shape to the beginning of precisely that

kind of subclass in terms of those undocumented or fraudulently

documented immigrants who came to this country after 1982. It is

believed that about four million persons will be in a state of

limbo as a result of the bill and, therefore, mercilessly

susceptible to labor exploitation, racial discrimination by police

and public services, employers or agencies, family disruption,

victimization by fraudulent identification schemes, and massive

involuntary exodus • all the things which presumably were hoped

to be avoided.

Something must be done quite immediately. The most logical and

in this case the only right thing to do falls upon neither INS

nor the Census but rather the U.S. Congress here represented,

that is to advance the cut-off date to the date of enactment of

the bill (perhaps making of it a broader "blanket" amnesty with

due legal limitations). Not without its own complications to be

sure, such an amendment would remove most of the procedural and

implementation problems we are encountering, the negative images

and self-defeating possibilities with which we are being

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threatened and, not least of all, the persisting Ignorance about

the exact or realistic number of illegal immigrants existing in

the United States today.

This is a particular cogent consideration, in light of the

provisions in the present Act for increased effectiveness in

strengthening the border patrol and reception process from

further massive illegal entries and expected recommendations for

improved aid, investment and quality of international cooperation

which should be coming from the study commission authorized by

the law.

In the long run•and I have been making the point futilely for

quite a "long run" now•the matter of undesirably massive

immigration, whether legal or illegal, into the United States

will be largely resolved neither by police action nor amnesty

alone. Rather it requires a significant reduction in qualitative

as well as quantitative discrepancies of living standards, and

the opportunities and means of sustaining them, within the region

or countries of origin of these immigrants and also between such

places and the United States or other industrial/post-industrial

or metropolitan core countries with which they have had long,

close, asymmetrical relationships in a world undergoing serious

technological and political economic restructuring.

2. Several measures have been included in the text of the

legislation and its more detailed policy implications on the

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commitment by the Federal government to reimburse local entitles

and to engage private or voluntary (non-commercial) agencies in

rendering services to new immigrants. But the provisions of the

bill are quite numerous, tedious and complex; its language is too

cloudy. Hence, it has triggered various possible levels of

misunderstanding, conflict, paralysis and non-compliance among

the principal players • government, immigrants and employers •

while giving impetus to the growth of a mediating and service

sector (in which there are already being experienced numerous

cases of inefficiency, insensitivity, dishonesty, and delay).

Also becoming quite evident are emerging cases of conflict of law

or jurisdiction such as the particular problems of foreign

student violators or the reprisals of Internal Revenue Service on

legalization applicants or employers. Also emerging are cases of

intersectoral conflicts of interests as between the stricter

bureaucrats seeking to dramatically reduce the presence of

illegal immigrants and the more lenient interpretations of

elected officials and local governments interested in the

expansion of their vote and revenue-sharing bases by retaining

large numbers of immigrants within their districts.

3. By admission of the principal proponents of the bill as well

as the press, the battle for and against the new immigration

legislation was more intense, prolonged, and perplexing than had

been expected. In fact, not only were there splits among usual

coalitions and conflict within usually consolidated groups but

there are few advocates on either side that can claim complete
108

victory without compromise as perhaps should be in U.S.

politics.

The extremists among the proponents of the bill seemed committed

in large measure to a narrow "Americanizationist" position•a

self righteous insistence on "protecting" the borders and

immigration laws of this country against the illegal "Invasion"

by largely non-white, non-English speaking "alien" persons, whose

numbers they feared could tilt its population, culture, linkage

and image away from traditional European stereotypes. They did

not take lightly efforts by their opponents to delay or contest

the bill or to modify and defeat their proposals. There are

those scholars who were quite misjudged and mistreated in the

process because of their independence or differences. Time will

continue to prove many of their views crucial, perceptive and

correct.

In their blindness these extremists failed to see a broader

Americanization process which has been taking place among the

illegal immigrants, refugees and their legal peers. Many of

these latter have demonstrated commitment to hard work, general

compliance with the law, acquisition of English proficiency,

enrollment in the Armed Forces, high scholastic achievement,

family stability, and savings toward purchasing homes and real

estate, and even opening businesses all things usually

attributed to "the American way of life". They have been

contributing culturally, economically and in some cases

diplomatically to the advancement and advantages of the United

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States as a whole or local places within it. But roost telling of

all is the fact that the prolongation of the debate also meant

its widening in terms of issues and range of participation to

include minorities and immigrants in discussions with serious

international dimensions as well as domestic implications. This

is an unusual development but encouraging message about new

levels of experiences in Americanization at work and democracy in

progress in the United States today.

C. The explicit purpose of the Sub-committees' call for today's

session was to hear implications of the legalisation section of

the Immigration Act of 1986 as it bears upon undercounting of

illegal immigrants in the 1990 census.

Before proceeding I must say that I have been serving on one of

the national advisory committees of the U.S. Census Bureau having

to do with matters of race, ethnicity, ancestry and minority

statistics for several years. In the past, the Bureau has been

very diligent in seeking out a wide spectrum of experts of

differing disciplines, regions, ethnic affiliations and

interests. I am proud to be among those called to render such

service. Perhaps some people may feel that the Bureau has not

been doing so long or often enough but I believe its record and

practices are commendable and that they merit the encouragement

and empathy of this the Sub-committee as well as the emulation of

the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

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The matter of adequately estimating or accurately counting

illegal immigrants is a vexing problem. It is an important issue

because of the many political (and personal) consequences which

depend upon it; it is a problematic index to arrive at whether

scientifically or politically. In the first case, there is the

fundamental elusiveness or invisibility of the phenomenon of

illegal immigration itself. In the second case, there is the

decisive role it plays in electoral and allocative politics in

certain areas of the country; and, therefore, the difficulties of

arriving at a consensus between political opponents or competing

entities for the resources which are allocated on the basis of

such estimates or counts.

Indeed the recent case of the estimating of illegal immigrants

has followed a strange career. In the first instance, baseless

exaggerated estimates were used by proponents of the restrictive

bill, the bureaucracies that expected to benefit from it, and

also some politicians and elected officials with a different set

of self-interests in mind. They did this in order to create an

atmosphere of urgency, present illegal immigration as an issue,

and, therefore, gain public support for their proposition. But

in fact no firm number of such immigrants was ever established

and no reliable means of arriving at it had been accepted.

While most parties tended to regard the figures provided by U.S.

Census as undercounts, the general consensus began to change in

favor of lower estimates as the period of enactment of

the bill approached.

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In fact, to date the small turn-outs reported among applicants

for the legalization program do not discount the possibility that

a much smaller number (and different composition) of illegal

immigrants indeed exist than we were led to believe by the

sensationalist campaigns of the recent past. What an irony it

would be if the mystified excesses which resulted in legislating

legalization are in turn demystified and invalidated by the very

legalization they brought about 1

Notwithstanding, among the implications the legalization program

holds for the counting of illegal immigrants in the forthcoming

1990 census are the following:

1. It may not be easy to execute the present legalization

program to the point of getting illegal immigrants to register

fully or in providing a reliable index of the size and

composition of their sub-population. The present formula for

legalization Is not designed to do either. But, inasmuch as the

total number of (post-1982) illegals may not be as large as

formerly believed, the proposals for advancing the cut-off date

for eligibility for legalization to the month and year of the

passing of the bill or of boldly Implementing a so-called a

"blanket" amnesty, to be followed by stricter efforts to

discourage later post-1986 illegal entries or status violations

by aliens, their employers or agents, are worthy strategy options

or amendments to consider.

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2. Short of such measures, more energetic campaigns, innovative

cross utilization of research methods and statistical data, and

truly coordinated interagency strategies must be practiced by

INS, and the Census Bureau. In fairness to the Bureau of Census,

it has not only admitted to its undercounts but has spent much

time in the past decade attempting to improve its field and

analytical methods to reduce undercounts of certain categories of

people. The Bureau will gain much for its own preparation,

however, by observing and heeding the experiences and errors of

the INS legalization efforts, related reports and analyses, and

by giving attention to the deliberations talcing place in this and

other Sub-committee sessions on the topic.

3. Both INS and the Census Bureau must cooperate with other

related public and voluntary agencies in order to encourage

(rather than discourage) full participation of the "undocumented"

segments of the immigrant population in the present legalization

and later census counts. But before going any further, it is

important to appreciate that the benefit of obtaining more

accurate counting or realistic estimates of illegal immigrants

extend beyond the reporting agencies or national/federal policy

making spheres of government. Its benefits accrue also to local

government, elected officials and aspiring politicians,

neighborhood agencies and immigrant or minority group themselves.

It brings the question back to the Sub-committee as it is

represented here today.

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As elected officials, especially those of you representing the

urban centers which are believed to house the largest

concentrations of illegal immigrants, e.g.. New York City, Los

Angeles, Miami, Houston, etc., it behooves you to get involved in

campaigns of legalization, naturalization and census-taking among

the legal and illegal foreign born. Such campaigns require much

the same enthusiasm and energy as those held for primary

elections or special registrations where the issue is "getting

out the people." Politically speaking, the undercount is in part

a reflection of the failure of the local elected officials,

political machinery and governments to educate the local people

and to motivate them to come out, confide in the process, and

feel convinced that it works beneficially for them as well as for

you, individually and collectively . Therefore, your active

cooperation in these operations go beyond legislation and

oversight. It must include educating your constituents and

mobilizing your local agencies and party organizations to get the

people out. It must also involve creating or conserving the kind

of process and system which is fair, sensitive, beneficial and

efficient in their and their (new) nation's behalf.

4. In order for such joint efforts to have long lasting results

they require, in addition, an awareness and acknowledgement on

all our parts of the lag which exist between research and policy

in the field of immigrant and population studies and our resolve

to do something about it. Part of the problem we are confronted

with is the lag between independent academic research, knowledge,

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expertise and training in the study of new immigration/or new

immigrants and related public policy. I have often spoken and

written about this lag; and it has led me to engage in the

institutional-building efforts at the Smithsonian and now with

The City University of New York, at the price of furthering my

personal intellectual fulfillment. Had such a lag not existed,

had such lacunae not been permitted to develop the Bureau of the

Census, the INS, and the Government may have had the methodology

or statistical device to provide such information as we seek

today. Some of the blame for the situation, of course, falls on

the academy itself and also on the questionable priorities of

government and foundations in terms of scholarly studies of

social phenomena vis-a-vis policy oriented studies of political

issues, and the relationships between them.

There is a place for independent and legitimate scholarship in

public service. However, its specific effectiveness and

credibility come in part from its learned awareness of the issues

and situations balanced by its purposeful focus on the more basic

and inherent questions posed by the larger social reality or

phenomenon, rather than the anxiety provoked by partisans and

images painted by publicists about situations revolving around

it. Its contribution to public action - whether change or

conservation - is governed by profound, high-level, independent

thought and professional interventions reflective of the highest

standards of knowledge, method and ethics in the disciplines.

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Hence, rather than waiting to react to another Sputnik shock or

be jolted into anxiety by the surprising gains of Japanese

education and management techniques, let us now use just a bit of

imagination to appreciate what organized academic research and

training institutes (or projects) could do in preparing future

migration experts and in staffing population/policy agencies for

the challenges of tomorrow. Your support is needed in our effort

to prepare ourselves and our students to serve this country and

City well in the fields of immigrant, population and related

studies.

In conclusion, I hope my participation today indicates to you my

sense of duty and sincerity of commitment to be useful and

constructive •as citizen, immigrant and scholar•in the solution

of problems of national concern.

Thank you for this opportunity.

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Mr. GARCIA. Professor, thank you very much. Your last suggestion obviously is one that I agree with. I think that while I just

spoke with the Catholic Church, I would broaden that and encourage other organizations as well. There are a lot of organizations in

the New York Metropolitan area which are non-sectarian but nevertheless very much part of their community and very much respected by that community, so you can be assured that we will do

everything humanly possible.

Mr. DYMALLY. Mr. Etienne, there was a special provision, was

there not, for Haitians and Cubans? How does that impact on the

amnesty program?

Mr. ETIENNE. This is the most liberal section of the new Immigration law. But we know that the Haitian Entrants are only

50,000 nationwide. So when you look at the Haitian population

here, of the 400,000 in New York City, you find out that there are

200,000 who are illegal aliens. Therefore the 50,000, Entrants who

are eligible for adjustment or 25,000 in New York City, one can realize that provision of the law will cover only a small portion of the

Haitian population.

But even those people have difficulty to provide the type of documentation that is required by INS for adjustment, as I alluded to

that earlier.

Mr. DYMALLY. Bryce, I was very pleased to learn that you were

coming here because of your past experience with this issue. Do

you have any estimate of what the Caribbean population is in the

United States; and where do you get your figures from if you do

have them?

Mr. LAPORTE. I would be prepared to look for them.

Mr. DYMALLY. I want to further continue this with you on a more

Srivate level to see if we can, in the course of the census, get the

ureau to have an appropriate question for us to get this count.

I talked to the academic community and they are guessing and

the Census people don't know, the politicians have an estimate.

It would be nice for a number of reasons•marketing, statistical

data, academic research•to have that figure.

Mr. LAPORTE. Well, let me just tell you, for the people in the Caribbean itself it's also important. Many times they end up utilizing

U.S. data to try to explain their own population movement.

And it implies that there is a need for some cooperation between

the U.S. Census Bureau and the census bureaus of several of these

places.

Mr. DYMALLY. Let me interrupt you. Ms. Lowenthal went to

Trinidad, so they're beginning to do that with the Census Bureaus

there.

Mr. LAPORTE. Right. Because one of the figures that is internationally not taken is emigration so that nobody knows who leaves,

or how many people leave. And then foreign experts tend to use

and assume from data produced in the reception countries to get

some clue. Well, if I add these together, then I may get some clue

of who or how many left.

And to the extent that one is going to start engaging in cooperative studies of immigration in•I think it's important to engage in

cooperative development, trade and so on, to balance off against

immigration•it's important to know this kind of information.
117

Mr. DYMALLY. I understand there are more Grenadians in Brooklyn than there are in Grenada.

Mr. LAPORTE. And this is true for several other countries.

Mr. GARCIA. I would just like to take this opportunity to thank

both of you.

Thank you very much. The meeting is adjourned.

[Whereupon, the subcommittee was adjourned.]

[The statement which follows was received for the record:]
118

TESTIMONY

submitted by

STANLEY MARK

On BenalT OT The

ASIAN AMERICAN LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATION FUND

Before the

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CENSUS AND POPULATION

COMMITTEE ON POST OFFICE AND CIVIL SERVICE

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

June 1. 1987

Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund

99 Hudson Street, 12th Floor

New York, NY 10013

212-966-5932
119

INTRODUCTION

Before the passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986

(IRCAi, concerns about the census undercount of Asian Americans had been

voiced by community organizations that deliver social services to immigrant

families. Although hall' of all legal immigration to the United States is now

from Asia and while one out of every four persons in New York City is an

immigrant or refugee, the undercount detrimentally limits the amount of

public funds available to immigrant communities for the delivery of social

and government services The restrictive legalization provisions of IRCA

will not dramatically alter this undercount. Only more education campaigns

in the Asian American press and media supplemented with community

education by local and national advocacy organizations will improve the

census participation among Asian immigrants.

BACKGROUND

As the gateway for generations of immigrants, New York s Statute of

Liberty continues to welcome large numbers of Asian immigrants who settle

mainly in the New York City metropolitan area where the largest state-wide

concentration of Asian Americans now resides. According to the 1980

census, over 328.000 Asian Americans live in New York State, while

approximately 253.000 are in New York City. These figures do not factor in

the substantial undercount of both documented and undocumented Asian

immigrants who did not participate in the census due in part to the

language barrier.

For the Asian American communities, the growing numbers have not

always meant acceptance The model minority myth" has rejuvenated an

historical anti-alien and anti-Asian resentment and mistrust towards Asian
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immigrants and refugees who are viewed as competitors on the job. in

business, and in the schools. This myth has grown to overshadow the truly

serious needs or Asian Americans, the fastest growing immigrant group in

the United States. Instead of acceptance and tolerance. Asian Americans

have too often become the scapegoat for the loss of jobs, the economic ills of

society, and the problems of those not doing so well and of those who feel

threatened by the large influx of immigrants from Asia. These nativisls'

attitudes are largely responsible for the current wave of anti-alien and antiAsian sentiment around the country and have given rise to a disturbing

trend of anti-Asian violence recognized as a national problem by the US.

Civil Rights Commission in its 1986 report, Recent Activities Against Gtizens

andResidents ofAsian Descent.

It is in this context that federal, state, and local immigrant and refugee

policies will be shaped and that such a policies must take into account the

concerns of the growing numbers of Asian American immigrants and

refugees. The enactment of 1RCA and with its programs of legalization,

employer sanctions, and the SAVE project will further emphasize the need

for comprehensive policies and will also exacerbate the existing problem of

gaining access to local and state services faced by immigrants who are

unable to speak English and unfamiliar with government agencies and

institutions.

AMNESTY OR LEGALIZATION ?

Although it is still too early to determine accurately the number of

undocumented aliens who will eventually apply and obtain lawful

permanent residency under IRCA's legalization provisions, the restrictive

interpretation of IRCA as set forth by the implementing regulations will
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narrow the scope of eligibility to smaller numbers of the undocumented and

deny legal status to the larger numbers of undocumented seeking "amnesty'.

Furthermore, the number of undocumented who eventually become legalized

through the two step process of "amnesty" will even be smaller than the

number who are eligible to apply. In effect, the undocumented will

continue to be the exploited underclass most vulnerable to unscrupulous

employers who subject immigrants to the worst working conditions and a

pay scale far below the minimum wage (despite employer sanctions and

labor laws).

As a result, a larger number of undocumented immigrant workers,

ineligible for legalization, will not participate in the next census due to a lack

of legal status. Moreover. Asian immigrants, regardless of their immigration

status, who are unable to speak English and distrustful of government

agencies will ignore or avoid the census process. Such decisions become the

the safer course to take even though the fear and risk due to their status

may be totally unfounded. For example, it will be highly unlikely that an

immigrant family living together in the same household will cooperate fully

with the census process after several members of the family had failed to

qualify for legalization while other members were able to legalize their

status. Unfortunately. IRCA s legalization program has no provision to assist

family unification but may result ironically in the separation of families.

This is contrary to the policy of reunification of families which has been an

integral part or the Immigration and Naturalization Act for decades.

Furthermore, many of IRCA s restrictive regulations were challenged during

the rule making process as being contrary to the Congressional intent that

lead to the enactment of IRCA and will therefore result in litigation. ( A close

examination of the thousands of comments submitted to the Immigration
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and Naturalization Service will demonstrate the controversy surrounding the

restrictive nature of the regulations and the broader intent contemplated by

Congress.) In any event. IRCA s so called amnesty' with its limited eligibility

will not legalize the anticipated number of undocumented aliens. This

program will not substantially improve the undercounting problems faced

by immigrant communities seeking affordable housing, decent paying jobs,

quality schools, health care, and access to government services and benefits.

RECOMMENDATIONS

The anticipated impact of IRCA's major provisions will require a

comprehensive and coordinated pro-immigrant policy that addresses

complex issues and questions faced at all levels of government. The main

ingredients of this policy must include:

1) recognizing the contributions made by present as well as past

immigrant groups:

2) encouraging respect for the histories, cultural heritages, and the

languages of diverse immigrant groups:

3) promoting access to goverment agencies and services for

immigrants and refugees;

4) increasing the recruitment and placement of bilingual personnel

within government agencies that provide services and entitlements

to immigrants and refugees; and

5) establishing more education programs to promote literacy as well

as English language proficiency among ail U.S. residents

regardless of their immigration status.
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A more specific response to IRCA's impact upon census-taking must

include political support and government funding for the above-mentioned

recommendations and especially for community education that will promote

the confidentiality of the census process during the 1990 census. The Asian

American newspapers and media must be more effectively utili2ed by the

Census Bureau to foster a better understanding of the political and economic

significance of the census for the immigrant communities as well as of the

process itself.

The legalization program does not affect the larger number of Asian

American immigrant workers in the undocumented underclass who are

ineligible for legalization and who are unlikely to participate in the 1990

census due to their status and the language barrier. Although

undocumented workers and their families work, pay taxes without collecting

government benefits, and are otherwise law-abiding, they ignore the census

in order to avoid government scrutiny that may jeopardize their staying in

the United States. Therefore, outreach efforts must continue to solicit

cooperation and support for the census from community organizations

working in the immigrant communities. Such input and cooperation is

necessary to overcome the mistrust of government agencies and increase

access to the census process for non-English speaking immigrants unfamiliar

with government institutions and procedures. Funding for outreach and

publicity must be increased to improve access for both the census-takers

and immigrants and refugees who are counted.

CONCLUSION

As more Asians arrive, settle, naturalize, and vote, the census grows in

its importance to the franchisement of Asian Americans seeking to gain fair
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represenlanlion in local political institutions and at all levels of government.

Redistricting, an issue already racing Asian American communities, will

depend heavily on an accurate 1990 census (which will also determine the

demographic data for the Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas, essential

to the enforcement of equal opportunity in employment). Undercounting of

Asian immigrants in slates like New York may result in continued losses of

Congressional representatives which would translate into underrepresentation and a smaller proportionate share of federal funds for New

York. The dilution of voting strength and the smaller share of federal

revenues allocated for Asian American communities will seriously affect

these communities. In particular, their infrastructures are already

overloaded by the demands for decent paying jobs, affordable housing,

health care, social services, and access to government agencies that lack

bilingual personnel.

What constitutes just and fair pc.icy responses to the underclass of

undocumented immigrants who live in the shadow of society while

contributing their labor and services to expand the economy, educating their

children, and paying their fair share of taxes remains a debatable

controversy. Unfortunately, the 1990 census will not wait for the end of this

debate and the next census will not have accurate figures that count and

tally both the documented and undocumented aliens, regardless of the

numbers legalized under IRCA, unless the suggested policy recommendations

are properly funded and implemented.

1C5? 89 •1

77-631 (128)