United States Immigration

Guy Taylor, a 16-year-old Canadian orphan, entered an INS hearing office in Los Angeles on Friday wearing a Dodgers baseball cap, a black Raiders jersey and baggy jeans--the epitome of an average American kid. He left smiling 20 minutes later, holding a certificate that allows him to continue living the life of an average American kid, at least for a year. "I won," the lanky teenager said as he walked out of the downtown Federal Building.

The departure of the nation's first "border czar" in many ways marks the end of a clamorous chapter along California's frontier with Mexico. Title it "The Crackdown." The next chapter awaits key new characters on the U.S. side, and it is unclear if the high-profile job of overseeing the country's southern border for the Clinton administration will be based here anymore.

President Clinton made a strong statement in favor of continued high levels of immigration Saturday, saying it is Americans' duty to welcome new citizens from abroad--and immigrants' duty to learn English and "embrace our culture." "I believe new immigrants are good for America," Clinton said in a commencement speech at Portland State University. "They are revitalizing our cities. They are building our new economy. . . . They are energizing our culture and broadening our vision of the world.

More than 4,000 elderly or disabled immigrants living in Los Angeles County stand to lose federal aid Sept. 30 unless they can show they have obtained U.S. citizenship or permanent resident status, officials said Friday. The residents receive Supplemental Security Income, a federal cash assistance program for elderly, blind and disabled legal residents. Benefits range up to $640 a month from federal and state governments.

The underground railroad that slipped millions of Central Americans across the U.S. border in the 1980s is now smuggling Asians and Africans desperate for a chance to reach the United States. Arriving in South America as tourists, they sneak through the Amazon jungle to Colombia--a country known for the quality of its counterfeiting--to obtain forged Central American visas. With those visas, they are less likely to be stopped along the way.

A federal law that treats fathers and mothers differently in deciding whether children born abroad out of wedlock are U.S. citizens seemed on shaky ground after a Supreme Court decision. That result came about even as the court rejected, 6 to 3, a sexual-equality challenge to the immigration law that automatically deems such children citizens if their mother is American but requires more if only their father is American.

One year after implementation of a landmark overhaul of the nation's immigration laws, senators from both parties Tuesday called on the Clinton administration to be flexible in applying new rules governing asylum for political refugees. "The very least we can do . . . is for the [Immigration and Naturalization Service] to promulgate very broad exceptions," said Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio).

Sweeping aside a campaign that polarized environmentalists and prompted international cries of racism, members of the nation's most powerful environmental group overwhelmingly voted to retain their neutral stance on immigration, the Sierra Club announced Saturday. In a landslide victory for the Sierra Club's leaders, 60.1% of voting members favored neutrality on the nation's immigration policies, while 39.2% supported a measure calling for stricter curbs.

Federal investigators confirmed they are looking into adoption agencies that bring Russian women to Louisiana to bear children for adoption in the United States. The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Services said it is conducting a criminal investigation but refused to identify its subjects.

More than 100 demonstrators, many accompanied by their children, marched down Broadway to the Federal Building that houses U.S. immigration offices in downtown Los Angeles to protest a law that could jeopardize their work permits. Chanting "We want justice!" and "Respect our human rights!" some of the demonstrators wore white headbands emblazoned with the word "Amnesty." The activists were marching in support of those who applied for late amnesty in 1987 and '88.