24 Arrested in Police-INS Drug Raids in Santa Ana

Santa Ana police, accompanied by federal immigration agents, arrested 13 suspected drug dealers and 11 suspected illegal aliens Wednesday in raids of five homes, marking what authorities said was a successful beginning to their new crackdown on the city’s narcotics trade.

Though only small amounts of marijuana and cocaine were confiscated, police said they hope the suspects will provide leads to higher-level drug dealers. And Police Chief Raymond C. Davis said he hopes the high-profile “Swat Hypes” operation will drive out of town those dealers who are not arrested.

Authorities said the cooperation of immigration agents with police--a matter of increasing concern in the Latino community--went smoothly and without incident. However, residents and community leaders continued to express concern over the role of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

52 Officers, 10 INS Agents

“I think it was a perfect example of interagency cooperation,” said Joe Thomas, INS deputy district director. “It was a demonstration of the kind of effectiveness we can have with cooperative efforts . . . in targeting high-crime areas.”

Fifty-two police officers were accompanied by 10 INS agents in Wednesday’s raids, but they may have been outnumbered by reporters and news camera crews also invited by authorities.

Some neighbors of houses raided said they support the crackdown on drug dealers, but have concerns about immigration agents accompanying police.

Pastor Shares Concern

As he watched police and immigration agents lead suspects out a house at 2701 W. Pomona Ave., Jesus Lopez, 22, said he feared that the INS involvement will discourage residents from reporting narcotics suspects.

“If the people see the immigration people here, it’s going to cause a lot of problems,” Lopez said. “There are some people who live around here without any (immigration) papers, and some that I know who are applying for legal residency.”

Father Will Davis, pastor of St. Joseph Catholic Parish, shared Lopez’s concern.

“I wish the INS was not involved,” said Davis, who went along on the raids at the invitation of police. He added, however, that he saw no incidents in which INS agents overstepped their bounds.

“It will take time to see how the community will respond,” he said. “There are 60,000 undocumented (immigrants) in Santa Ana. The people live in great fear of the INS.”

In recent days, some Latino activists expressed concern that INS agents could not be trusted to restrict their activity to houses where drug arrests would be made.

“We didn’t wander at all,” Thomas said Wednesday. “We were with the (police) teams at all five houses. There were no arrests made . . . on the streets around the houses. We were good to our word, as we shall continue to be.”

But Nativo Lopez, spokesman for Hermandad Mexicana Nacional, criticized INS agents for being “highly visible” during the raids. And Father Davis also said he expected INS agents to wear civilian clothes, rather than the jackets they wore with “INS” emblazoned across the back.

All but one of the suspects arrested for drug sales were identified as illegal aliens, a police spokesman said. They also are subject to formal deportation hearings following their conviction or acquittal.

The 13th criminal suspect is a resident alien with permission to live in this country, police said. He is subject to deportation if convicted or found to have a prior criminal record, an INS spokesman said.

Dealers ‘Using’ Aliens

Chief Davis said Wednesday that illegal aliens are involved in drug sales disproportionate to their numbers in the general population. But, he added, high-level drug dealers, themselves U.S. citizens, are “using the undocumented for sales.”

Davis said the vast majority of illegal aliens in Santa Ana are law-abiding.

Of the 11 suspected illegal aliens taken into custody by the INS, one is an adult male, five are women and five are children, whose ages range from 1 to 6, authorities said.

The INS’s Thomas said the women and children may be offered “voluntary departure”--that is, transportation to the Mexican border, as an alternative to formal deportation hearings.

“Although (the women and children) were obviously in houses . . . while the (drug) trafficking was occurring,” Thomas said, “we’re interested in the humanitarian aspects of the family.”

INS and police spokesmen previously said that deportation proceedings would be used against all illegal aliens not charged with crimes but present in locations of drug sales. Persons formally deported can be sentenced to federal prisons if they are subsequently caught entering the United States unlawfully.

Woman, Children Not Held

At one location, a woman and her five children, ages 1 to 12, were not taken into custody, police said. There was no evidence that the woman was involved in drug sales and she was a legal resident alien with proper documentation, police said.

“If we knew that they were dealing drugs in this house we wouldn’t have come here,” said Martha Evans, 27, who said she, her husband and children were only visiting at 803 S. Kilson Drive when police raided the house. “We just wanted to get out for the night.

Only moments before the raids, police undercover officers purchased drugs at each of the houses, Police Lt. David Salazar said. Numerous undercover purchases have been made over several weeks at the locations, he said, enabling police to obtain search warrants.

The first location targeted by police was a stucco tract house at 1601 Highland St., fortified with bars on the windows and wrought iron doors. Officers used a carbon-tipped saw to cut through the dead bolt that locked the front door. The other houses raided are at 2701 W. Pomona St., 803 S. Kilson Drive, 1110 S. Rosewood Ave. and 1230 S. Rosewood Ave.

Santa Ana City Manager Robert Bobb, who visited the scene of the first raid, said the police action was “professional and efficient,” and Deputy Police Chief Gene Hansen said that “response from neighbors is tremendous.”

‘I’ll Cooperate’

But whether the raids and accompanying high-profile public appeals for assistance will be successful in enlisting community help remains to be seen.

Alicia Robles, 30, a mother of two who lives near the fortified house raided on Highland Street, said she is willing to help police.

“There was a lot of traffic around here . . . and I know if there are drugs being sold in my neighborhood,” she said. “I’ll cooperate.”

When police raided the third house at 803 S. Kilson Drive, one neighbor said she had strongly suspected her neighbors were in the narcotics business but had not reported them for fear of retribution.

“We were afraid to tell anybody, and I was really scared for my children,” Augustina Nava said. “Thank God that they got them.”

“They are going to take them away for good, aren’t they?” she asked, watching from her doorway as police took three men and two women into custody.