Speech #1010042728

This amendment addresses an issue which is central to the legislation which is currently before us: Family unity. My colleagues will recall that during the 100th Congress. Senator CHAFEE and I. along with Senator SIMON and others expressed our concern about the plight of families in which one member qualified for the Legalization Program authorized by the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. while other family members did not. For months we pressured the Immigration and Naturalization Service. INS. to develop an administrative remedy for such families and to assure that ineligible family members would not be deported. After considerable delay. the INS did announce a policy which it called a "family fairness" policy. We did not find that policy to be particularly fair then. and we do not find it to he fair now. As my colleague from Rhode Island has already pointed out. the INS policy fails to address the humanitarian concerns regarding family separation. Ineligible spouses of legalization applicants are given protection from deportation only if they can prove "compelling or humanitarian" circumstances. such as serious medical problems or the presence of a handicap. Former Commissioner Nelson has explained that marriage or immediate family relationship alone would not be enough for INS to refrain from deporting an individual. With regard to children. the policy would only protect them from deportation if both of their parents qualified for legalization or. in the case of singleparent families. if they lived with the parent who qualified. In addition to our concerns regarding the putative fairness of the INS policy. we also are concerned because the policy does not set adequate guidelines for local INS district directors to follow. Specifically. there is no clear guidance regarding which circumstances would constitute "compelling or humanitarian factors" which would protect individuals from deportation. We argued before that these shortcomings in the INS policy on families jeopardized the success of the Legalization Program because the ineligible family members would continue to reside In the United States without the benefit of legal status or work authorization. In effect. the problems we sought to solve with the establishment of the Legalization Program would continue and we would still have a subclass of individuals living in fear and vulnerable to exploitation.