Official Warns of Illegal Alien Wave : Latinos Hostile as INS Aide Urges Punishment of Employers

Speaking before a sometimes hostile audience of Latino community leaders in Santa Ana, the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s top western official predicted Wednesday that if the INS cannot control the current flow of illegal immigrants, the “front door” to legal immigration is “going to be shut tight.”

Harold Ezell, the director of the federal agency’s western regional office, added that the best alternative for solving the problem of illegal migration into this country would be to impose sanctions on those who knowingly hire illegal aliens.

Major Sticking Point

Sanctions on employers have been a major sticking point with Latino groups for the past few years because many believe that such a policy would be discriminatory to Latino workers. A sanctions provision has bounced around in Congress the past few years, and a bill containing sanctions was approved last week by the Senate. It is expected to encounter stiff opposition in the House.

Ezell’s statements, made at a weekly breakfast of Los Amigos, an Orange County immigrant rights group, prompted heated exchanges on several occasions with some of the Latino activists present.

‘We’ve Got Our Limits’

“What I have fear of is that if we don’t control the back door then the front door is going to be shut tight,” said Ezell, who, since he was hired as INS western director three years ago, has been outspoken even by INS standards on the need to control illegal immigration. “America is not a nation it was 100 years ago where you were out trying to find people to help populate a nation. We’ve got our limits.”

He said that Latino community members have mistakenly made the subject a “Hispanic issue” when they claim that the INS is deliberately targeting the U.S.-Mexico border and job sites that predominantly have Latino workers. About 500,000 people from throughout the world who come here on visas remain in the country each year, Ezell said, and about 9,000 more who are apprehended along the southern border are not from Mexico or Latin American countries, but from about “70-some different countries.”

Argument Challenged

A few members of the audience took issue with his argument, claiming that Ezell’s past statements on the subject have made it clear that he was singling out immigrants from Mexico and other Latin American countries.

Amin David, president of Los Amigos, told Ezell: “Nothing has fueled the concern of the Hispanic (more) than your own public words. You’re pointing down south.”

David noted that Ezell had been quoted in the past as saying, “I feel a great fear inside of me that it’s not going to be the same America in five years if we don’t do something,” and “America is being invaded.”

Another activist in the audience of about 30, Armando Navarro, president of Congress for United Communities, told Ezell the reason many legal and illegal immigrants are coming into this country is because of the U.S. government’s unwillingness to aid Latin American governments economically and for its propping up of oppressive regimes.

“The problem of illegal immigration is that it’s tied to the whole notion of foreign policy,” he said during a fiery dialogue with Ezell. He accused the INS chief of using Latinos as the scapegoat for America’s problems “in a way reminiscent perhaps as the way Hitler was using the Jews in Germany.” After their exchange, Ezell said to Henry Pollock, chairman of the discussion, “I won’t answer him.”

One member of the group also inquired about Ezell’s background, asking if it might contribute to his stinging comments on illegal immigration or information he has given out to the media, information that was described as occasionally erroneous. Of the four regional INS commissioners, Ezell has the least government experience; he completed about two years of college and was a corporate officer for 11 years with the Wienerschnitzel fast-food chain. Ezell countered by saying: “I think your statements are self-serving for your own benefit; if your logic holds true then Ronald Reagan shouldn’t be President.”

Ezell briefly touched on the “Swat Hypes” anti-narcotics program that Santa Ana police plan to launch next week. INS officials will accompany the police officers to homes suspected of being sites for narcotics deals whose buyers and sellers are believed to be illegal immigrants.

“We’ve got a serious problem, and we’ve worked out a plan with our L.A. office,” he said. “I think that the Santa Ana police are dealing with a very serious problem--drug addiction, drug selling and all of that. I believe the chief (Raymond Davis) and his staff have done everything they could to address the problem.” Ezell said cooperation between the two agencies will not mean other changes in INS policy.

INS District Director Ernest Gustafson, who accompanied Ezell to the meeting, echoed the position he had expressed Tuesday night in a meeting with community members, saying that no major “sweeps” will be conducted in neighborhoods when INS officers accompany the police. “We’re separate entities--no green cars, no uniforms,” he said.

Ezell said the INS is opposed to a provision in the recently passed Senate bill on immigration reform that would allow up to 350,000 foreign seasonal farm workers at a time into the United States. Joe Flanders, a spokesman for the INS in Los Angeles, said later that the agency would like to see more control of the guest worker program and that INS officials are not unilaterally opposed to a guest worker program. Ezell conceded that a “transitional reform” on immigration is needed.

David, who earlier in the year along with other Latino leaders called for the resignation of Ezell, said he invited the INS chief so he could give his views on immigration and, in turn, understand the “intensity and concern of our community.”

“I want him to feel it,” he said. “And we were pleasantly surprised that he accepted our invitation.”