Amnesty Protesters Call on Ezell; He’s Not Home

A little caravan from East Los Angeles--two school buses, a few vans and cars--trundled Saturday through Nellie Gail Ranch in Laguna Hills, an area where streets have names like Buckskin and Broken Bit and Dapple Grey, where sloping backyards become horse corrals.

After an hour’s drive, the group stopped on Buckboard Lane. Out poured nearly 200 people from the crowded, low-rent Dolores Mission parish in Boyle Heights, almost all of them Latino.

They had come to pray and sing a protest about the new immigration law, which permits amnesty but also can mean deportation for those who fail to qualify. Many Southland groups have argued the law discriminates against many Latinos and could force families apart.

The Catholic mission group chose to gather in front of a house on Buckboard Lane because its owner, Harold W. Ezell, is western regional commissioner of the federal Immigration and Naturalization Service.

They have asked Ezell in the past to use his discretion to grant temporary extensions, now on a case-by-case basis, to people who might not qualify for amnesty and therefore would face deportation.

Father Gregory J. Boyle, pastor of Dolores Mission, said that would give people time to find alternatives.

Ezell has said it is in the hands of the Congress.

So they took the protest to his home, to plead their case that families are affected.

The Ezells, Harold and his wife, Lee, heard none of it. They were gone for the day, and their two daughters are now grown and live on their own.

But the mission people were not bothered by their absence.

“Maybe he will hear us in his heart,” said Carmen Lima, one of the organizers.

The parishioners lined both sides of the street, at the base of a field where some youngsters had set up a pup tent. Nearly half of the protesters were children themselves, and some clusters of people represented three generations of families.

They carefully stayed off the Ezells’ property, though many crowded near a birch tree beside the Ezells’ sidewalk to take advantage of its shade.

“We have come here to have a very peaceful and non-violent service,” Father Fernando Arizti, Dolores Mission’s co-pastor, told the group over a bullhorn in Spanish. “We have come to pray that none of our families will be split in half.”

Most of the 35-minute vigil was conducted in Spanish. And each of several speakers was followed by two verses of “Somos Un Pueblo Que Camina” (We Are the Walking People).

The group knelt in prayer many times, and a handful of non-Latino Catholic priests sang in Spanish with them.

Jose Rubio, 42, one of the speakers, spoke in Spanish as his 10-year-old son, Jose Jr., translated for a listener: “Many of our mothers and fathers fear the possible division of families and their children. We pray that this agony may come to an end.”

Says Ezell Was Warned

Boyle said later that he had written the Ezells to warn them about the demonstration. He also had informed the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

“We didn’t want any surprises,” Boyle said. “We just wanted someone to hear our prayers. I don’t know of a family here which doesn’t know someone in this difficult situation. They have great fear.”

A few neighbors watched curiously. Sophie Schrahe, who lives with her husband, Juergen, in a home just west of the Ezells, watched with a mixture of interest and irritation as she displayed a homemade poster that read, ‘We Support Commissioner Ezell.”

“We came to this country 27 years ago from Germany, and it took us a long time to get our paper work cleared,” Sophie Schrahe said. “Let them come in legally like we did. If you don’t follow the laws, then these are the consequences for you.”

“That’s right, especially when you only speak Mexican,” said Juergen Schrahe.

The Schrahes and another neighbor, Diana Craig, were bothered that most of the demonstrators appeared to speak no English.

“We learned English by watching ‘Little Rascals’ on TV,” Sophie Schrahe said. “There are German kids in the schools here, but you don’t see the schools offering German.”

Carried Wooden Cross

Otto Sanabria and his wife, Irma, both 37, who had come on one of the buses, did not seem to notice the neighbors. Otto, a daughter clinging to his arm, was carrying a thin, seven-foot wooden cross.

On Monday morning, Sanabria has an appointment with Catholic Charities in Los Angeles, so it can try to help him come up with documentation he needs for amnesty.

“His wife is documented, but he is not,” Boyle said. “He has a very real concern about deportation unless something is done.”

Otto Sanabria, speaking in broken English, said: “I worry about my family. But it’s the same for everybody here.” His wife, Irma, added: “My husband is a good husband; he works hard. But separation is no good for the children, for the family.”

The Schrahes said the Ezells care as much about family ties as anyone else.

“He is trying his best in a very difficult job,” Sophie Schrahe said. “I don’t think it’s right for these people to invade his home life.”