Corona Council Turns Down Plea to Stop Police Role in Immigration Roundups

Despite a plea from about 120 protesters to halt local police involvement in federal immigration sweeps, the City Council has declined to place even a temporary moratorium on such cooperation.

The protesters formed a picket line Wednesday evening outside the Civic Center, then filled the council chamber to overflowing to express their opposition to Corona police participation in a pair of U.S. Border Patrol sweeps on Jan. 28 and April 10.

Latino children carried signs, hand-lettered in English and Spanish, then sat on the floor of the council chamber, while activist Victor Torres urged council members to stop the joint immigration raids until a permanent policy can be devised.

“We are here to ask for what is fair and equitable and morally right,” said Torres, representing a newly formed group, Coalition of Citizens for Humanitarian Treatment of the Undocumented.

Asks for Review

The group asked the City Council to review policies and opinions on immigration law enforcement in other cities, to establish a citizens’ commission to formulate a policy for Corona, and to institute an immediate moratorium on police cooperation in the Border Patrol sweeps.

More raids, Torres said, would “fuel the fires of discontent” in the Latino community, which accounts for about a quarter of Corona’s population.

During the January and April sweeps, plainclothes Border Patrol agents and uniformed police cruised the city’s barrios in Corona police cars, stopping suspected aliens, questioning them and arresting them within a couple of minutes.

In one instance, officers interrupted practice on a city soccer field to question the teen-agers playing there. Officers arrested at least one and deported him without notifying his parents, said Father Bob Buchanan, pastor of St. Edward’s Church in Corona.

As a result of those tactics, Torres said, undocumented residents of Corona have become “afraid of reporting crimes to the Police Department for fear of reprisals. . . . Crimes that go unreported affect us all.”

Sign Urges Friendship

One sign, carried by a young boy, said simply, “I’m scared.” Another urged police to police behave like friends, not like enemies: “Policia portense como amigos, no como enemigos,” it said.

A majority of the City Council, which already had appointed a two-member committee to study the sweeps and report back with a recommendation, said that panel is sufficient to deal with the issue.

A pair of motions to institute a limited moratorium, offered by Mayor S. (Al) Lopez, died for lack of a second. The first sought a 60-day moratorium, the second a 30-day halt.

A moratorium “would be too sudden,” said Mayor Pro-Tem William Franklin, who serves with Lopez on the committee. “The city manager and police chief are certainly aware of the feelings of the community,” he added.

Police Role Defended

Both City Manager James D. Wheaton and Police Chief John Cleghorn have defended the police participation in immigration sweeps, contending that officers have a responsibility to enforce all laws, and that illegal aliens contribute to an increasing crime rate in their city.

However, opponents of the sweeps cite policies against police participation in such activities in Santa Ana, Los Angeles and Anaheim.

“How many criminals were arrested when they stopped people coming home from work?” Buchanan asked.

“How many criminals were arrested when they stopped and detained teen-agers who were playing soccer? How many criminals were arrested when they stopped . . . people who were trying to learn English?”

After the council declined to enact a moratorium, Buchanan threatened to sue the city if the councilmen fail to act quickly on a new policy. “If we don’t have a policy in a month, we’re going to court.”

A federal judge in Los Angeles ruled two weeks ago that a lawsuit challenging immigration officers’ tactics in Orange County could be expanded to include as plaintiffs all Latino residents of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.

Attorneys for the seven Orange County residents who filed the federal civil-rights suit in 1979 referred to the Corona sweeps in arguing that the case should be expanded to a class-action suit.