`YOU GET SATISFACTION FROM IT'; IMMIGRANT CENTER DIRECTOR MARKS 27 YEARS OF HELPING.

Byline: Yvette Cabrera Daily News Staff Writer

With a firm tug, Eduardo Palacios opens one of four file cabinets stuffed with worn manila folders. Inside each are documents on every person he has helped during the past 27 years.

Palacios, 69, will no longer thumb through those files after he retires at the end of this month as executive director of Immigration Services of Santa Rosa. The San Fernando-based agency has provided free advice to more than 70,000 people since it opened its doors in 1971 as a one-day-a-week center.

Distressed by the exploitation of immigrants in the San Fernando Valley, Palacios - himself an immigrant - co-founded the center as a student at what was then San Fernando Valley State College, now California State University, Northridge.

``There were lawyers taking advantage of the immigrants, charging $500 back in those days,'' said Palacios, who will be honored with a lifetime achievement award Friday by the center's board of directors and community leaders. ``And although I had a job, I like helping people. You get satisfaction from it.''

Initially, Palacios and eight other volunteers provided free immigration advice, forms and legal expertise. The center later expanded to give job referrals, medical assistance, food and sometimes even shelter.

Palacios, who was born in Nicaragua and grew up in Mexico, knew firsthand how difficult it was to be an immigrant. In the mid-1950s, after leaving a low-paying job as a principal in Tampico, he hopped fences into San Diego, only to be deported three times.

In 1956, he immigrated legally and joined Harshaw Chemicals, a Sylmar paint company, from which he retired in 1983 to become executive director of the center.

Carl Alan Palacios, one of Eduardo Palacios' four grown children, remembers the crowds that packed the parish hall of Santa Rosa Church, where the center was housed for its first 18 years.

``The really touching thing about what my father has done is seeing generations and generations of families come in to the center to see him,'' said Carl, 30, who answered phones and filed papers as a youngster.

The appreciation of the immigrants Palacios has helped, a majority of whom are Latino and farm workers, is seen in the gifts they bring him - everything from cotton guayabera shirts and sacks of oranges to boxes of avocados, grapes and watermelons.

``He's been a force not only in his own commitment, but in his ability to bring other people in volunteering and helping the community,'' said the Rev. Tom Rush, pastor of Mary Immaculate Church in Pacoima. Rush has worked with Palacios since 1973, when both were at Santa Rosa Church.

Once retired, Palacios plans to volunteer his time at local hospitals, jails and Meet Each Need With Dignity, a social service agency in Pacoima.

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PHOTO Eduardo Palacios will receive a lifetime achievement award for his 27 years of service to immigrants in the San Fernando Valley.

Tom Mendoza/Daily News