INS Press Event Hits Snag: Alien Shortage

The Immigration and Naturalization Service’s normally efficient publicity machine was thrown off kilter Monday.

The agency couldn’t find enough illegal aliens.

The INS, which often publicizes its activities by inviting the news media along, had planned on Monday to advertise its new Operation High Intensity, a crackdown on Los Angeles-area houses where illegal aliens are held by smugglers after being transported across the Mexican border.

Monday afternoon, the INS advised local newspapers and radio and television stations to assemble on a Los Angeles street corner, from where they would accompany agents on raids of a so-called “drop house.” But an hour before the press tour was to begin, INS spokesman John Belluardo announced that the raid had been canceled.

“We were expecting a large load of illegal aliens at the houses,” but only a small number were there, he said.

Joseph Thomas, the INS’ deputy district director for Los Angeles, said agents had anticipated finding several dozen illegal aliens at the targeted house, but were unable to verify that information Monday.

Last spring, the INS ran a similar campaign, called Operation Disruption, against drop houses along the California and Arizona borders with Mexico.

Often, illegal aliens have been found crammed into small or filthy living quarters in drop houses. In a case last May, the FBI broke up a smuggling ring that had held 22 illegal aliens in Los Angeles houses until relatives or employers made ransom payments.

Belluardo said the first raids made as part of Operation High Intensity occurred Friday and netted 10 smugglers and several dozen illegal aliens at homes in Anaheim and La Puente. However, the media were not invited on those raids.