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Friday, September 26, 1997

Elderly immigrants worry about changing laws

By DIANE LA MORTE / Corpus Christi Caller-Times

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas -- A locked tin box she keeps underneath her bed is Sara Garcia's only legal proof of her 79 years as a U.S. resident. The frayed and yellowed papers -- the only ones that will count when the Immigration and Naturalization Service reviews her application for citizenship -- give a nod to her past but don't point directly to it.

A widow for 20 years, Garcia has tried to fill in the gaps. But Mexican officials have no record of her birth, and the U.S. government has no record of when she crossed the border into Laredo as a 2-year-old.

Instead, the papers she kept for sentiment's sake -- her husband's border crossing card, their marriage license and her mother's residency card -- have become a source of fear rather than comfort.

"I was worried that I wouldn't be able to get everything in order," said Garcia, 81.

Federal welfare changes enacted a year ago have pulled elderly immigrants into a maze of forms and interviews, initially requiring them to gain citizenship or risk losing their Supplemental Security Income benefits.

They faced the confusion of tracking long-lost paper trails while dealing with the fear of deportation. Many can't read or write, and they struggled to learn English to pass immigration tests and meet the Sept. 30 filing deadline, said those who help the immigrants through the process.

"We've had several clients who had to return to Mexico to get the paperwork that had been lost," said Shannon George, president of National Adult Day Care Inc. in Corpus Christi. "At their age, they felt pretty distraught."

Only a few months before the Sept. 30 cutoff for SSI benefits, the government decided to exempt the elderly and disabled. But by then, most already had started the process, which can take six months to a year to complete.

Santa Dinn, administrator of Catholic Social Services in Corpus Christi, said immigrants should complete the citizenship process if they have already started it. Congress could change its mind again, Dinn said.

"The next Congress can do something stricter," she said.

Elderly immigrants who came to the United States in the early 1900s had myriad reasons for not getting naturalized.

Many were wives of farmers who became U.S. citizens and thought their husband's citizenship automatically extended to them. Others doubted they could pass the citizenship test, which includes an interview typically conducted in English and questions about how the U.S. government works.

"They're petrified," says Dinn, who estimates her office has processed an average of 300 forms each month since the welfare changes were announced. In the past, the center would help fewer than 100 new applicants in a month, she said. "They've been here all these years and have never been asked to provide proof of their residency," Dinn said. "All of a sudden, you have to produce a new (green card), and a lot of these people didn't have them. They didn't renew their card because one way or the other they didn't need to show it for the last 20 or 30 years.

"In other situations, the person is completely undocumented. When it comes time for them to retire and collect their Social Security benefits, they're left with having to come up with papers and documents that don't even exist." An INS spokesman said the department has taken steps to ease the naturalization process for older immigrants.

It now allows people who are older than 50 and have been in the country at least 20 years to take the test in their native language, said spokesman Ray Dudley of the San Antonio district office.

And for those 75 and older, test questions are limited to 10 instead of the usual 20 to 25 about American history and how the U.S. government works.

Dudley said the INS has conducted a "large number" of bedside interviews for Corpus Christi residents with severe disabilities and medical problems.

But even with the most recent exemptions, some elderly immigrants wonder why a government that readily gave them Social Security numbers decades ago would demand other papers for proof of residency.

"She told me, 'I always felt I was from this country because I've lived here all my life,' " said Garcia's granddaughter, Sylvia Moreno, 41.

Moreno said her grandmother lost weight worrying about her status, and would hardly touch her meals.

The family was so concerned, they hired an immigration lawyer to help her get through the process.

"I'm sympathetic to the fact that this lady would have to go through this and worry about it," said Garcia's attorney, Mary Helen Berlanga, whose parents are Mexican immigrants who became U.S. citizens when they became eligible. "They never had to worry about these things, but I don't know that I would have been able to find any of these documents if we needed to. I can see where these things would be difficult to track."

Mary Lou George, who co-owns National Adult Day Care, said she noticed a change in many of her clients when they heard about the pending welfare changes -- even in cases that shouldn't have presented a problem.

Hilaria Rodriguez, 72, a Corpus Christi resident for 50 years, had all of the necessary paperwork in place -- but she would come into the center trembling. At times she would start crying for no apparent reason.

"I was very worried because I didn't think I could get anyone to help me fill out the forms," said Rodriguez, a widow for seven years who was born in Tampico, Mexico. "My eldest son, Juan, said if they did deport me, they would do their best to get the papers together to bring me back. The family was very worried."

Another source of stress was the amount of money Rodriguez paid to gain her citizenship -- which she estimates ended up costing $115.

"I knew ahead of time that I would have to do this, so little by little, month by month, I put money aside," Rodriguez said.

Besides paying a $90 application fee, she gave gas money to friends for driving her to different agencies to collect the necessary paperwork. "I'm glad it's over," she said.

Although Garcia's case wasn't as smooth, the papers she has and a deposition from an older friend should provide enough proof of her status as a legal resident.

"We know there's going to be an interview involved, but we want to avoid a full-fledged hearing with a judge," Berlanga said. "We want to make it as easy as possible. We want to put her mind at ease and give her a different comfort level."

Others may not be as fortunate, like the elderly women who come into Dinn's office crying because they are missing papers to prove they've been U.S. residents for more than 20 years. "I've had one of the daughters come in and tell me, 'She doesn't sleep. She just sits up worrying,' " Dinn said.

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