IMMIGRATION CUTOFF NEARS; ILLEGAL ALIENS WOULD HAVE TO APPLY FOR PERMITS OUTSIDE U.S.

Byline: Rick Orlov Daily News Staff Writer

Thousands of illegal immigrants in Los Angeles will have to leave the country to apply for green cards unless Congress extends a regulation that had provided them a reprieve.

An INS regulation that allows illegal immigrants to remain here while they apply for legal status is set to expire Sept. 30, a development that has touched off a wave of fear among immigrants, advocacy groups said Monday.

``We are talking about an impact on tens of thousands of people in Los Angeles,'' said Susan Alva of the Committee for Humane Immigration Rights in Los Angeles. ``And that impact is devastating. There are new levels of tensions and anxieties for people who just don't know what will happen.''

The Immigration and Naturalization Service, meanwhile, is expecting a surge of applications from people rushing to beat the clock.

``The message is to get that application in before Sept. 30,'' Paul Virtue, the INS' acting executive associate commissioner, said Monday.

Dan Korenberg, an immigration attorney who works with the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said the regulation allowing immigrants to stay while their applications are processed, known as 245-I, was put in place to take the strain off embassies, which handle green card applications abroad.

The regulation allowed applicants to remain here while their applications were processed, provided they paid a $1,000 fine.

The biggest impact of the regulation's expiration will be on families seeking to keep one or more members in this country while they apply for their green cards, he said.

``We are talking about people who have jobs, mortgages, cars, children and have been here over 10 years,'' Korenberg said. ``People are going crazy. They are totally frustrated because they don't know what to do.''

Complicating the issue for the immigrants, Korenberg said, is that other provisions of the most recent immigration laws, which will take effect Saturday, will prevent people from applying for citizenship for anywhere from three to 10 years if they have been in the country illegally.

``What 245-I did was allow people to remain in the country while their application was processed instead of having to return to their home country and be interviewed at an embassy,'' Korenberg said. ``That's why they paid the $1,000, 80 percent of which went into a fund to investigate cases of fraud.

``And, if they leave the country, they will face bars that prevent them from applying to re-enter. We (handle) something like 4,000-5,000 clients and only one told me he would be leaving.''

The U.S. Senate has approved an appropriation measure that includes an extension for the program. A House version of the bill scheduled for a vote next week does not contain an extension, meaning the two houses will have to reach agreement in a conference committee.

Manuel Garcia of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, estimated the federal government has raised some $200 million in the program, in which some 230,000 people applied in 1996.

Garcia said MALDEF's office in Washington has been lobbying Congress to approve the extension and plans to launch a letter-writing campaign to get its message across.