‘Is That All There Is?’

In your editorial (March 6), “Is That All There Is?” you discuss the arrests of eight immigrants by agents of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. Clearly, most Americans, with any concern for the preservation of civil rights, will agree that the McCarran-Walter Act appears to have been misapplied in this instance.

Your opinion, however, attacks the wrong element of the INS. You state that “It is beginning to sound as of the eight immigrants were guilty of no more than having political opinions that some government agents did not like.” The truth is that government agents have little if any say in what cases they pursue or who they arrest. “Agents,” as the title implies, are merely agents for those who make the decisions. In this instance the agents are acting for the management of the INS, a branch of the Justice Department headed by Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III.

In this particular case, the central office of the INS in Washington, claims that they were unaware of this case being pursued in Los Angeles. The person ultimately in charge of the operations in the Los Angeles office is Harold Ezell, the Western regional commissioner.

Ezell was appointed to his position by President Reagan after he performed admirably in his duties as a fund-raiser for the GOP before the 1980 presidential election. Ezell has no formal training in the law or the Constitution. Ezell’s decision to pursue this case was most probably based on information that he received from his staff. No matter, he must be forced to take responsibility for this action if it does turn out that his agents overreacted.

It is interesting to note that Ezell’s closest ties to the Administration lie in his personal friendship with the attorney general. If the Washington office of the INS was, in fact, unaware of the Los Angeles operation, one has to wonder if this not another case of overzealous political appointees operating outside of the system.

RON ACKERMAN

Los Angeles