INS to Study Claims of Abuse as Sanctuary Sentencing Ends

A top official of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, responding to comments from the federal judge who presided over the trial of members of the sanctuary movement, said Wednesday that the service will investigate the movement’s claims that there have been abuses by Border Patrol agents in handling Central Americans’ request for asylum.

The statement by Maurice C. Inman Jr., general counsel of the INS, came after the sentencing of the final three defendants in the trial to terms of probation.

In their statements to U.S. District Judge Earl H. Carroll before their sentencing, all of the eight convicted defendants said they were moved to participate in the sanctuary movement, in part, because the government illegally denies sanctuary to thousands of Central Americans.

Charge Use of Force

Several of the defendants alleged that there was summary destruction of applications for political asylum. Others alleged that asylum applications were “voluntarily” withdrawn by Central Americans while guns were pointed at their heads.

“I have been impressed by what (Judge Carroll) said, and I will personally have someone look into the allegations, and if there is any proof, we’ll take action,” Inman said. “Ripping up a1847615856violation of INS regulations.

“This was the first I ever heard of it,” Inman said after attending the second day of the hearing.

Two of the final three defendants to be sentenced for their convictions of immigration law violations received five years’ probation and one received three years. The five sentenced on Tuesday had also received probation terms of from three to five years.

Convicted on May 1

The eight movement participants were convicted, and three others were acquitted, May 1 on a variety of violations growing out of their efforts to provide succor and legal assistance to Central Americans fleeing combat and strife in their homelands.

Speaking in court at his sentencing Wednesday, the Rev. John M. Fife, a 45-year-old Presbyterian minister here who is a co-founder of the nationwide sanctuary movement, told Carroll: “The refugees and their suffering are a question of human rights--gross violations of human rights in El Salvador and Guatemala and violations of refugees’ human rights in these United States. . . .

“I beg for mercy, not for myself but for the refugees.”

Fife was given five years’ probation and ordered not to engage in or aid and abet any bringing in, transporting or harboring of illegal aliens.

Priest Makes Statement

Father Ramon Dagoberto Quinones, 49, a Catholic priest and Mexican national who ministers to Central Americans in the border town of Nogales, Sonora, told Carroll before sentencing:

“I must reaffirm unconditionally here that the Immigration Service will not accept applications for asylum at the border. The American officials pick up the telephone and call Mexican authorities who would very quickly pick up the trusting refugee and take him to a Mexican jail for deportation soon after.”

Quinones was sentenced to five years’ probation.

A second Catholic priest, Father Anthony Clark, 37, of Nogales, Ariz., received three years’ probation after telling Carroll: “I am not guilty of any crime before God or the good people of this land.”

Judge Closes Proceedings

Carroll, in a valedictory closing the seven months of trial proceedings, urged sanctuary workers to work within the system for change--and the INS to do more to assure that claims for political asylum are fairly processed.

“The problems mentioned here as justification for these (criminal) acts should now be well known to the Immigration and Naturalization Service,” Carroll said. “I encourage a fuller use, a more determined use of the system (by the sanctuary workers), and . . . the INS certainly has an obligation to do what is required (by law), if not more.”

Carroll also chided the sanctuary workers for, he said, not pursuing the more mundane aspects of winning asylum but instead pursuing “the allure, media attention, applause and TV appearances” that have been accorded them since their indictment in January of 1985.

The sanctuary movement workers who were sentenced to probation Tuesday were: Margaret J. (Peggy) Hutchison; Sister Darlene Nicgorski; Philip Willis-Conger; Wendy LeWin, and Maria del Socorro Pardo de Aguilar.