Take a number and wait - Immigration and Naturalization Service

Washington Monthly, Sept, 1989 by David Shaw

Eva decided to take the INS up on its amnesty offer. Next came the bungling lawyer, the trip to Tijuana, and nearly two years of worrying about deportation.

The lawyer said our housekeeper was "a perfect applicant for the immigration amnesty program-mne of the best-documented cases I've ever seen." We should have walked out of his office right then. After all, if Eva's eligibility was so perfect, why did we need a high-priced lawyer? We stayed. After all, I'd decided to go to a lawyer, rather than try to process the amnesty application myself, because I didn't want to have to worry about all the bureaucratic obstacles that would have to be hurdled even in a case as straightforward as Eva's. That was my first mistake.

Eva, a native of Mexico, had been my live-in housekeeper in Los Angeles for 12 years. Before that, she'd been the live-in housekeeper for my late wife and her previous husband for I I years. I don't really need a live-in housekeeper any more, but Eva and her two grown sons-both of whom also live with me-had become almost part of the family, and I'd come to care for all of them (and to rely on her) a great deal. Helping her to get amnesty seemed the least I could do, especially since she'd been in this country continuously since 1965-long before the January 1, 1982 date required to apply for legal residence and, ultimately, U.S. citizenship under the amnesty program. Moreover, as our lawyer told us, our documentation of Eva's residence was as exten-

sive as it was irrefutable.

The boys were already legal residents of the United States; our lawyer-call him Snagsby-said that since one of the sons, Ricardo, would automatically become a United States citizen when he turned 21 next month, we might be able to get Eva her U.S. citizenship more quickly if we bypassed the amnesty process altogether and had her apply for citizenship as the mother of a U.S. citizen. That, he said, could save as much as 18 months in "processing and waiting time"; Eva would probably be a legal, permanent resident "before the summer is over." Not only that, Snagsby said, but he would charge me only" $200 an hour instead of his regular flat fee of 1,500 to $2,000, because Eva's case was going to be so easy. Right.

A few days later, Snagsby sent us a two-page letter, spelling out in detail the various steps he would take in Eva's behalf-but failing, somehow, to mention the mother-of-an-American-citizen option. I wrote back, asking about this oversight and suggesting that even my limited experience with lawyers made me think it unlikely that he would be able to do everything he said he had to do in the letter in a mere eight or ten "billable" hours. I said I suspected that at $200 an hour, we would probably wind up with a bill of more than $1,500 to $2,000, not less.

Snagsby wrote back, saying I was quite right" about the money; he suggested a flat fee of $1,250.

As for his failure to mention the mother-of-an- American-citizen option-well, ". . quite frankly, I totally forgot that option!" he wrote. I should have said adios right then.

I didn't.

That was my second mistake.

Instead, I wrote back, enclosing the requested first payment of $500 and asking what would happen next.

No answer.

When we did finally communicate a month later, Snagsby said he hadn't done anything yet because he was still waiting for Eva to send him a form he had mailed to her shortly after our first meeting, asking for information on her marriage; he needed that, he said, so he could apply for a copy of her marriage certificate to include with his filing.

I was furious. Pummel them

"Eva says she never got your letter," I told him. "I don't know if it got lost in the mail or if she misplaced it or just didn't understand it, or if she just forgot' about your letter because this whole thing scares her so much. As I told you, she's always been convinced that any contact with the bureaucracy means she'll be deported instantly. That's why I asked you to send copies of everything to me. Why didn't you call me when you hadn't heard from her in two months?

"In fact," I said, really steaming now, "why the hell are you bothering about her marriage certificate anyway? What do you need that for? Ricardo is legitimate but he doesn't have to be, right? All that matters is that he was born in this country and that Eva is his mother, not that she was married, right?"

A few days later, Snagsby wrote to say, "I have thought it over and decided to pass on the marriage certificate."

He then began writing letters and filing forms with the bureaucracy. Every few weeks or so, I would call or write to ask about progress-and to make sure there had been no more unanswered letters. Every time, the answer was essentially the same: "We haven't heard anything. You know the bureaucracy. These things take time." I reminded Snagsby that he had told us Eva would "probably be a permanent resident of the United States before the summer is over." I was still reminding him of that in mid-October.

Eva, meanwhile, interpreted the delay as confirmation of her worst fears; clearly, the bureaucracy was plotting to deport her, not legalize her. After all, several friends who were also illegal aliens had applied for amnesty and they already had their green