LOS ANGELES, April 20: Calling the INS’s arguments “insubstantial,” a three-judge panel of the federal court of appeals in San Francisco this week has issued a ruling which, according to lawyers in the class action case, that will allow immediately over 50,000 undocumented families to legalize their status under the “amnesty” programme enacted by Congress in 1986 and implemented by the INS during a one-year application period in 1987-88.

One of the longest pending cases against the INS, the class action lawsuit, Newman v. INS was filed in 1987 in federal court in Los Angeles challenging a policy under which the INS turned away thousands of amnesty applicants who had briefly travelled abroad during the 1982-87 required period of residence and returned using non-immigrant visas.

Widely known as the “LULAC case” in the immigrant community because it was initially filed by the League of United Latin American Citizens, the case resulted in a decision by Los Angeles federal judge William Keller in July 1988 that INS’ travel rule was illegal because Congress had authorized aliens to travel during the required period of residence. INS did not appeal that ruling and agreed its travel rule was void.

However, when Judge Keller issued a further decision in August 1988 extending the application period for applicants the INS refused to implement the decision and appealed the extension order.

About 100,000 immigrant class members would be US citizens by now if the INS had simply followed the amnesty law as written by Congress.