Boy, 13, Arrested and Deported by INS as He Warned Others of Impending Raid

A 13-year-old boy--who was arrested by Immigration and Naturalization Service agents as he rode his bicycle in the City of Orange--remained in custody Sunday in Tijuana with little hope that his mother would arrive to get him.

INS officials said they stopped Victor Amador Garcia at the corner of Almond Avenue and Main Street on Thursday morning because he began yelling “la migra” to warn others of approaching INS vans.

Harold Ezell, INS regional commissioner, said the case was unusual and agents were not out “looking for children riding bicycles.”

Robert Gilson, a U.S. Border Patrol spokesman in San Diego, said the “young rascal was riding back and forth” about 11 a.m. when he should have been in school, while agents tried to round up illegal residents gathered at a pickup point for day laborers. About 100 were arrested.

Tells a Different Story

But the boy, in an interview at a juvenile facility in Tijuana, told a different story: “No, I wasn’t yelling or shouting at anyone when I was on my bike. I was alone, and the street was empty.”

Garcia also said it happened at 7:30 a.m., as he was going to buy candy, “because I knew I had to be at school at 8.”

He now waits for someone to get him. The problem, Garcia said, is that he has no relatives in Tijuana and he will not give information about his mother, fearing that she, too, will be deported. He said that she has lived in Orange illegally for eight months.

Reached at her home on Sunday, the mother said her son’s predicament has been traumatic for her, and her limited options have not made it any easier. Speaking on the condition that she not be identified, the woman said she has several children. She said she has no job and does not know what she should do. The woman said she did not know the INS had picked up her son until Friday.

Left for School

”. . . He left to go to school. That is the last I saw of him,” she said.

When the boy did not come home Thursday afternoon, she called the elementary school, but no one there could help her, she said. The next day, a teacher--whose name she said she could not remember--tried unsuccessfully to have the boy released.

The woman said she plans to contact a 19-year-old daughter living in Vera Cruz, Mexico, and ask her to travel by bus to Tijuana to fetch her brother.

“I cannot go because if I do, I am fearful that I won’t be able to come back,” she said.

Ezell said he was not “using that boy to get one more illegal female. I’m not using that kid as bait.”

Drew Agents’ Attention

He said Victor brought the attention of agents onto himself with his warnings and added that “otherwise, they would not have even noticed him.”

Ezell said agents generally release juvenile detainees to a legal guardian, a relative with permission from a guardian or authorities from the juveniles’ country.

“It’s in their (Mexican officials’) hands,” Gene Smithburg, a U.S. Border Patrol spokesman, said of Victor’s future.

Daniel Romero, the chief counselor at the juvenile facility, Consejo de Orientacion y Re-educacion para Menores de Conducta Anti-social, said he had not heard whether the mother, or anyone else, was coming to pick up the boy.

During an interview Sunday, Victor appeared somewhat anxious about his future, but added that “they are treating me well here. It’s not that bad.”