The Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law (CHRCL), the non-profit organization that serves as plaintiffs' counsel in the amnesty litigation class action suits, has issued a detailed document entitled "A PROPOSAL FOR REGULARLIZING THE STATUS OF CERTAIN PERSONS BLOCKED FROM APPLYING FOR LEGALIZATION UNDER THE IMMIGRATION REFORM AND CONTROL ACT OF 1986."

The amnesty cases stem from the legalization program that allowed people in the mid-1980s to become permanent residents if they could prove that they were continuously present since 1982. The INS created a number of requirements that were arguably illegal and turned away a number of people who should have been qualified. Many other people failed to apply because they heard about the INS "frontdesking" policy of turning people away without even accepting their applications.

Those turned away ahve been fighting the INS in years in the courts in two class action cases - LULAC v. INS and CSS v. Reno. Congress stepped in and passed legislation in the 1996 Immigration Act that stripped federal courts of authority hear legalization claims.

CHRCL is proposing a plan to deal with the cases:

1) The INS should accept and adjudicate legalization applications from members of the certified classes in the legalization cases who establish that they visited INS offices during the one-year application period, but were erroneously told they were ineligible to legalize, irrespective of whether they had managed to obtain and fill out official application forms. The Administration retains the legal authority to grant this relief without additional legislation.

2) Persons whom the INS discouraged from visiting a legalization office by way of false and misleading publicity should be granted deferred enforced departure for two years while legislation similar to the 1997 NACARA bill, benefiting Cuban, Nicaraguan, Salvadoran and Guatemalan nationals, is pursued on their behalf.

The CHRCL provides considerable detail in its proposal and we will report as others sign on to this deal.