Week in Review : EVENTS, IMAGES AND PEOPLE IN THE NEWS : MISCELLANY/ NEWSMAKERS AND MILESTONES

Latino activists were angered to learn last week that Harold Ezell, regional commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, played a key role in establishing an Orange-based group fighting illegal immigration from Mexico.

Although Ezell’s involvement in Americans for Border Control does not violate any law or INS policy, immigrant rights activist Amin David said it “is above and beyond what one would perceive his role as immigration commissioner to be.”

David, who is president of the immigrant rights group Los Amigos, and other Latino leaders called for Ezell’s resignation earlier this year because of what they called his “xenophobic rhetoric.”

“I don’t think there is any problem,” Ezell contended. “I will continue to speak out on the need for the silent majority to get involved.”

Ezell recruited most board members of Americans for Border Control through his church and he gave them nighttime tours of the U.S.-Mexican border to illustrate the problem, members said.

“We arrested 64,000 illegal aliens last month at the San Diego border crossing alone,” Ezell said. “They cost us hundreds of millions of dollars in medical, judicial and general relief. Those are non-reimbursable costs. Every American needs to be part of the solution. They need to know what is happening to the country, to their country.”

It came as no surprise to Y Minh Pham’s teachers that the Vietnamese refugee would be accepted at Harvard University. What was surprising was that the Westminster High School junior will begin his Harvard career this fall--a year before he would have graduated from high school.

Y Minh, who has the second highest grade-point average in the Huntington Beach Union High School District, will enter Harvard without a high school diploma but with a $16,000 scholarship.

In addition to this list of academic accomplishments, Y Minh is likely to enter Harvard as a college sophomore because of high scores he earned on advanced placement exams.

Y Minh and his father, who was a doctor in Vietnam, had to leave Y Minh’s mother, brother and sister behind when they fled their country five years ago, but the family was reunited in December.

Y Minh has not yet decided on a major but is leaning toward either medicine or government. “I’ll miss my family, but I hope to do well there,” he said.

At the request of Richard Nixon, a bill naming the former President’s home in Yorba Linda as a national historic site was withdrawn last week in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The bill was shelved mainly because of opposition by those who “will never forgive (him),” Rep. William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton) said.

A similar bill, according historic status to former President Jimmy Carter’s home in Plains, Ga., was also shelved by the Interior Committee.

A congressional staff member suggested, however, that the problem is the good health of the ex-Presidents.

“When Presidents die, they get honored,” said Bob Newman, administrative assistant to Rep. Morris K. Udall (D-Ariz.), who heads the Interior Committee.

Help may be on the way from the private sector, in the form of the Nixon Birthplace Foundation, which owns the small, wood-frame home at 1806 Yorba Linda Blvd. The foundation has decided to take on the task of refurbishing and opening the house to the public, and to buy the adjacent three acres of land.