Amnesty-seekers must prove illegal status

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 15 (UPI) -- Some immigrants are seeking amnesty by attempting to prove to the U.S. government that they're in the country illegally, advocates say.

A settlement approved last year by a U.S. district court in Washington state provides that tens of thousands of immigrants who entered the country on valid visas but fell out of legal status between 1982 and 1988 can be eligible for amnesty under a 1986 law. The catch is the immigrants have to prove they became "illegals" in the 1980s, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday.

How to do that has been tricky, said attorney Peter Schey, who filed the class-action lawsuit on behalf of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. Schey has successfully argued that the government knew many immigrants had violated their status because they failed to furnish address reports and also because schools failed to update the government on the status of student visas, the Times said.

Nigeria native Olaniyi Sofuluke, who came to the United States in 1981 and overstayed his student visa, says he gained amnesty by arguing that the government should have known he had become an illegal when Troy State University in Alabama stopped sending it updates.