Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live Sunday

Thousands of Immigrants to Reapply for U.S. Residency, INS Predicts

Aired April 29, 2001 - 16:17   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: Last year, Congress passed the Legal Immigration and Family Equity Act that reopened a door for undocumented immigrants to apply for U.S. residency without returning home and waiting for years. Tomorrow, that door will close. CNN's Brian Palmer has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN PALMER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The scene is similar across the country: New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago.

Lines curling around city halls and county clerk offers with people documents in hand, some dressed to impress, a few with tots in tow. They wait patiently to get married before a deadline expires to make themselves legal in the eyes of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've been living together for awhile, and that's why we did it. She needs the paperwork, so that's why we did it.

PALMER: The INS estimates that more than 600,000 people are eligible to take advantage of a provision in immigration law called 245 I. It permits those seeking residency to apply without returning to their homeland.

ROBERTO REBOSA, MARRIAGE LICENSE BUREAU: Most of these people have been here for quite sometime, and have created families already. Their legal papers have expired, and now here's the opportunity to legalize the stay in the United States.

PALMER: But those seeking residency must do more than get hitched. On top of proving a relationship by blood or marriage to a citizen or permanent resident, an applicant must have filed a visa petition or labor certificate the April 30 deadline. Then, there's the $1,000 surcharge for those here illegally. INS officials are clear about what 245 I is not.

MARIA ELENA GARCIA, INS FLORIDA DISTRICT: Section 245 I is not an amnesty and I must emphasize that, because there's people in our community running around thinking that the INS has opened a new amnesty; that is not the case.

PALMER: The INS has other warning: if they discover a marriage is a sham, there are penalties.

The number two consequence: a fine upwards to a quarter of a million dollars. Orville McCoy (ph), a legal U.S. resident who works at New York's La Guardia Airport, and Janet Mantoch (ph), from Jamaica, say they're getting married for the right reasons.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not just, as soon as you are married, everything will be straight. We still have to prove our legitimacy, our love and everything.

PALMER: And prove it, they will, they say.

Brian Palmer, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com