Feb. 21, 1997
 ew York City remains the symbolic landing ground for immigrants to America. But the poetic ideal of the tired and hungry arriving at Ellis Island and being admitted to the country of their dreams is gone. Now immigration is a much more prosaic and bureaucratic affair, characterized by paperwork and lines, sometimes dragging on for years.

The lines have become particularly long with a new, stricter immigration law coming into effect in April. Most immigrants don't know the details of the law -- which is not surprising considering that it runs to more than 300 pages -- but many fear that if they don't get all their documents in perfect order they will be subject to deportation. They can end up waiting for as long as six or seven hours outside the New York area's only Immigration and Naturalization Service office, in lower Manhattan.

The situation can make for strange and interesting bedfellows, however. A Sikh political refugee from Punjab stood farther up the line from a young Moscow economist in a leather jacket. An Indian housewife from New Delhi waited calmly in front of a musician from Montenegro who could not stop making loud jokes, while ahead of them both an electrician from Trinidad seethed over what he saw as the system's injustices. Continue