Huge Backlogs, Delays Feared Under Senate Immigration Plan

By S. Mitra Kalita and Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, July 24, 2006; A03

Arturo Zavala entered the United States illegally from Mexico in 1976 and picked mushrooms in Pennsylvania for a decade before he became a legal resident. But that menial labor was not the toughest part of life here.

More difficult was gaining permission for his wife, daughter and two younger sons to join him and his eldest son here. The family finally reunited in 2001, 14 years after Zavala received his green card as part of a 1986 amnesty program for illegal immigrants.

The long delays for Zavala's family were among the many unintended consequences of the 1986 law, which allowed nearly 3 million immigrants to gain legal status. But illegal workers and the government may face far greater problems if pending immigration legislation passes and three times as many people -- as many as 10 million by some estimates -- are permitted to apply for legalization.

"It would be an utter meltdown," said Peggy Gleason, a senior attorney at the Catholic Legal Immigration Network. "Despite the problems, [the 1986 amnesty] was actually an enormous success. Government made this huge effort to make all these offices that were very consumer friendly. I have no idea what the government is doing right now to prepare, but back then, they thought about it hard."