New Amnesty Law Inspires Raft of Exaggerated Ads

The ink was barely dry on the new immigration bill when the advertisements began appearing in Spanish-language media in Southern California. To the area’s large illegal alien population, the message was clear: You had better act quickly to qualify for the long-awaited “amnesty”--the provision of the new law under which some undocumented immigrants can legalize their status in the United States.

“Don’t wait any longer!” warned one notice. “Put your papers in order.”

“Do it for your children,” a radio announcer urged.

“Specialists in: AMNESTY,” read another advertisement. “In only three months.”

What these ads don’t mention is that U.S. authorities will not accept amnesty applications until May, almost six months after the advertisements appeared. In addition, according to immigration attorneys and other experts, there are no “specialists” in amnesty because the law is so new and official guidelines so sparse.

“You cannot be an expert because there’s just not enough information about amnesty,” noted John A. Joannes, an attorney who heads the Los Angeles County Bar Assn.’s legal assistance project. “We don’t have any regulations, we don’t have any forms, we don’t know how it will be administered. . . . There is no such thing as a specialist in amnesty.”

Nonetheless, a wide range of lawyers, immigration “consultants” and other enterprising businessmen have flooded Spanish-language airwaves and newsprint in Southern California with a tidal wave of advertisements designed to garner business by providing advice on amnesty.

Although the problem seems to be centered in Los Angeles, with its large illegal population, ads from amnesty specialists also have been appearing in San Diego, which also has a substantial illegal population, and throughout the Southland. In addition, radio stations based in Tijuana have been broadcasting immigration-related advertising since the passage of the new law.

Ads also have appeared in the English-language media, particularly in free publications distributed at stores. The promotional barrage--complete with prospective prices of $1,000 or more for each person applying for amnesty--appears to be one of the most immediate impacts of the landmark immigration legislation, which President Reagan signed into law Nov. 6.

“We have been besieged by consultants, legal clinics, notary publics, what have you, seeking to advertise immigration assistance,” said Jose Lozano, publisher of La Opinion, the Los Angeles-based Spanish-language newspaper, which has a longstanding ban on immigration-related advertising.

“Since the passage of the law, there has been an increase” in such advertising, said Bob France, general sales manager for radio station XEMO in Tijuana. “But we haven’t had any lawyers make any wild claims.”

So prevalent is the promotional surge that an apparently apocryphal tale circulating among legal circles involves an immigration attorney who purportedly hired an airplane to fly over heavily Latino East Los Angeles and drop leaflets hyping his services. “If that’s true,” said one Los Angeles immigration lawyer, “I’m going to be negotiating with the Goodyear blimp people.”

The spate of advertisements, immigration experts say, reflects a wide information void in the illegal alien community: People are desperate for details on amnesty, but accurate information is hard to come by at a time when U.S. officials are still working on implementation of amnesty and other provisions of the new law.

“People want advice, but we have to tell them to sit tight because we don’t know how it will all work,” said Roberto L. Martinez, an official of the American Friends Service Committee who works with the undocumented community in San Diego.

Though the majority of ads appear to make no false claims to guarantee amnesty, observers say others are quite clearly misleading. Moreover, much of the promotional material implies a sense of urgency that many experts say is totally inappropriate considering the many still-to-be-answered questions and the lag time before amnesty applications are accepted beginning May 5. Applicants will then have one year to submit their claims for amnesty under the new law.

“It’s outrageous, to say the least,” said Linda Wong, director of the immigrants civil rights program for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund in Los Angeles. “They’re telling people, ‘Apply now, or you may lose out.’ . . . The bottom line is that these people are taking advantage of the undocumented community.”

Anna Garcia, a research associate at the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at UC San Diego, added, “These organizations are working desperately to get people enrolled and start charging them money.”

Officials of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, which has begun devising the amnesty program, are warning consumers to beware. The new law provides potential amnesty for illegal aliens who have resided continuously in the United States since Jan. 1, 1982, and for others who have worked in agriculture for at least 90 days in the 12-month period ending on May 1, 1986.

“No one can guarantee amnesty,” said Duke Austin, an INS spokesman in Washington.

Nationwide, the American Bar Assn. plans to monitor legal advertising as part of its broader examination of the effects of the new bill, said Craig Baab, staff director for the bar’s coordinating committee on immigration law. “No lawyer is in a position to guarantee a result,” Baab said.

The sudden increase in immigration-related advertising--and its potential for misleading ads--has forced some Spanish-language media companies to reassess and in some cases alter their guidelines for acceptance of commercial material. At La Opinion, Lozano said, a decision was made to retain its longstanding prohibition of immigration-related advertising.

“I think they’re disgraceful,” Lozano said of some of the advertisements he has seen in other media. “Now is the time that our community needs protection from these outfits more than ever. There’s so much hysteria, misinformation--or lack of information--about the new law.”

Representatives of both Spanish-language television stations in Los Angeles, KVEA (Channel 52) and KMEX (Channel 34), each of which can be seen all over the Southland, said they were accepting immigration-related commercials on a case-by-case basis after first screening the copy.

“I’m only taking (commercials) from licensed attorneys who can prove to me that they have some expertise in immigration law,” said Frank Cruz, vice president at KVEA. “I think the way the law is written there is certainly a lot of opportunity for unscrupulous attorneys, as well as consultants, as well as so-called ‘immigration experts,’ to abuse people.”

In some cases, media representatives have increased screening of advertisements after the questionable solicitations were aired or published.

“Some of our early copy, which we pulled off the air . . . was misleading,” acknowledged Jerry Symon, local sales manager for KTNQ-AM and KLVE-FM, two jointly owned Spanish-language radio stations in Los Angeles. “Now it’s pretty tough to get bad copy on the radio.”

Though the volume of misleading immigration-related advertising appears to have risen since passage of the new law, such misinformation is in fact an old story in the Latino community. For years, would-be immigrants have complained of being defrauded of thousands of dollars by the maze of immigration attorneys, consultants and others claiming expertise in the Byzantine field of immigration law.

“The history of immigration rip-offs of the Hispanic community is very, very long,” noted Cruz, of television station KVEA. “It’s a very sensitive area, where the law is extremely complex, with constant changes.”

In fact, signs advertising “amnesty” inevitably appeared in heavily Latino communities in recent years whenever immigration reform legislation neared reality in Washington.

“I actually recall driving through downtown L.A. in 1984 and seeing a big neon sign . . . saying Amnesty Inc.,” said Wong of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Despite such incidents, authorities say, disciplinary action or prosecution of lawyers and others engaged in fraudulent advertising related to immigration is infrequent. Officials note that the victims are often poor illegal aliens who speak little English and are unlikely to approach law enforcement authorities after they have been defrauded.

“You just can’t get the witnesses to come forward,” said William Newsome, deputy San Diego city attorney, who works with the city attorney’s consumer fraud unit.

Despite the potential for fraudulent advertising, lawyers and others working in the immigration field defend their use of the media--particularly Spanish-speaking outlets--as a necessary means to reach potential clients and fully inform the public of their services.

“As long as it (advertising) is in good taste, I don’t have any problems with it,” said Wayne Gomez, an attorney in Vista who has advertised his services on a Tijuana-based radio station since the passage of the new law. “It’s really a whole new market. . . . The people I deal with as a general rule are not exposed to the Establishment media, and I feel this gives me the exposure.”

Among the most dramatic examples of the recent boom in immigration-related advertising are the proliferation of ads that accompanied two special immigration supplements published in Los Angeles by Noticias del Mundo, the nationwide Spanish-language daily affiliated with the Unification Church. On Nov. 11, just five days after the bill was passed into law, an eight-page supplement contained 25 advertisements by Los Angeles-area firms offering immigration-related services, with amnistia-- amnesty--often serving as the highlighted word.

“AMNISTIA ESTA AQUI” (Amnesty Is Here) stated the advertisement for one Los Angeles law firm.

Another firm, called Casa Latina, with four offices in the Los Angeles area, described its staff as amnesty “specialists” in an advertisement. In the copy, the word AMNISTIA was followed by the phrase “En Solo Tres Meses!” (In Only Three Months!).

Richard Miranda, a paralegal who is the director of Casa Latina, acknowledged in a telephone interview that no one could acquire amnesty in three months and that there are no specialists in the still-murky legal area of amnesty. The ad was modified last week.

“If a client walks into this office and wants amnesty in three months, I tell him, ‘You must be mad, because there’s nothing we can do,’ ” said Miranda.

An advertisement with similar claims, published in the same supplement by Alejandro Nassif Lopez, a Los Angeles attorney, also was in error and has been pulled, the attorney said.

“Perhaps I made a mistake, but I corrected it almost immediately,” said Nassif Lopez, whose ad also mentions his prior employment for the U.S. government in Washington.

Another Los Angeles lawyer, Oliver Moench, who advertised his services in the Nov. 17 edition of Noticias del Mundo, acknowledged in an interview, “I know nothing about this law,” referring to the new immigration law. Moench said he would personally feel unqualified representing immigration cases, but he purchased the advertisement mentioning amnesty because a “qualified paralegal” was going to begin working with him on immigration matters. She later backed out, he said, prompting him to abandon the idea of doing immigration work.

“The problem,” Moench said, “is that a lot of unqualified people are giving bad advice.”