AMNESTY: Critics Claim Agents Ignoring Directives : Critics Claim Border Patrol Agents Ignore Amnesty Directives

When U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested Gabriel Soto Saucedo on a San Diego street June 15, Soto said he tried to convince the officers that they were making a mistake.

“I told them that I had been living in San Diego for almost 10 years, that I was in the process of applying for amnistia (amnesty),” Soto recalled recently as he sat on a park bench near San Diego’s southeast barrio. “But it didn’t matter to them. They told me I was lying. They said I lived in Tijuana . . . They said I was a pollero (smuggler).”

Thus began an excruciating, five-day ordeal in which Soto claims he was arrested, driven around all night in a Border Patrol van, threatened, locked up in several facilities--and, finally, transported to an immigration cell in El Paso, Tex., some 700 miles away, before he was finally able to post bond and return home. Apart from the emotional stress and financial loss, Soto said his absence cost him both his jobs, only one of which he has managed to get back.

Advocates for illegal aliens say cases such as that of Soto are not unusual along the 1,900-mile U.S.-Mexico border. Critics charge that agents of the U.S. Border Patrol, an enforcement arm of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, have routinely failed to inform detained foreigners about the possibility for amnesty. When the aliens have asserted claims for amnesty, critics add, agents also have refused to believe that they may qualify, and have illegally coerced prospective amnesty applicants into signing documents obliging them to return to Mexico. Because of the agents’ refusal to follow amnesty law directives, critics charge, many people have probably lost the chance to qualify for amnesty.

‘Going on for Months’

“That’s been going on here for months,” said Patricia Roybal Sutton, chairwoman of El Concilio de El Paso, a Latino rights group in El Paso, just across the Rio Grande from Mexico.

“We get horror stories like that every day here,” said Rafael Torres, who as field director for the American Friends Service Committee office in the Texas border town of Laredo, works with illegal aliens.

The alleged practice, critics charge, violates INS guidelines and provisions of the new immigration law. They cite sections of the law requiring that arrested, undocumented immigrants demonstrating “prima facie” or “non frivolous” amnesty cases be afforded the opportunity to apply for legal status. INS guidelines issued in the wake of the new law require that agents inform illegals that they have the opportunity to establish an amnesty case.

“I think this is no less than criminal misconduct by the Border Patrol,” said Roberto L. Martinez, co-chairman of a San Diego-based Latino rights group called the Coalition for Law and Justice and also a staffer with the American Friends Service Committee.

Evidence Anecdotal

Much of the evidence cited is anecdotal, as few victims are willing to air their complaints publicly. Most of the affected detainees are forced to return to Mexico, eventually making their way back to the United States illegally and assuming their place in the shadowy world of the undocumented worker. Nonetheless, critics say, complaints are frequent enough to indicate widespread abuse by the agency.

U.S. authorities deny the charges, insisting that their officers question all apprehended foreigners with potential amnesty claims about their prospective eligibility. “If an apprehended alien can show he or she qualifies for legalization, we will give that alien an opportunity to apply,” said Richard Kenney, an INS spokesman in Washington.

Moreover, the INS denies any coercion and asserts that all undocumented detainees are given the opportunity to be represented by attorneys at formal deportation hearings. Opting for deportation proceedings may require additional time in custody, but it could ultimately work in the interest of prospective amnesty applicants concerned about maintaining “continuous” residence in the United States. (To qualify for amnesty, illegal immigrants who are not farm workers must demonstrate that they have lived in the United States continuously since Jan. 1, 1982.)

“We’re not removing people from the country who have eligible claims,” said William Veal, deputy chief for the Border Patrol sector in San Diego, which accounts for about one-third of all arrests of illegal aliens border-wide. “If they appear to be eligible for amnesty, we give them the guidance they need and encourage them to file applications.”

Criteria Called Murky

Part of the problem, immigrant advocate groups say, is that the criteria for initial eligibility are murky, leaving considerable discretion in the agents’ hands.

Critics maintain that the tactics allegedly used with Gabriel Soto are not unusual, and that Soto’s case is only singular in one respect: He was strong-willed enough to resist Border Patrol pressure to sign a document that would have resulted in a quick one-way trip to Mexico courtesy of the Border Patrol. Immigrant advocate groups say that untold numbers of potential amnesty applicants have probably taken the easy way out and signed the documents--thus interrupting their continuous residence in the United States and seriously impairing their chances for legal status.

“What about all the other people who have signed the . . . forms under pressure from the Border Patrol and gone back to Mexico?” asked Marco Antonio Rodriguez, executive director of Centro de Asuntos Migratorios, a nonprofit immigration-assistance center in San Diego County that is helping Soto. “We only know about the people who had the willpower to spend time in detention and then had the opportunity to post bond. What about the ones who couldn’t do that?”

Thousands Detained Daily

Each day, the Border Patrol records thousands of detentions of illegal aliens along the U.S.-Mexico border, including arrests at the international boundary and in heavily populated cities such as San Diego and El Paso, which include large illegal worker populations. (In July, the daily average for arrests border-wide was about 4,000.) The great majority of those apprehended are Mexican citizens who are quickly returned to Mexico after signing documents called “voluntary return” or “voluntary departure” forms. Only a relatively small proportion of those arrested opt to enter formal deportation hearings, requiring additional time in custody.

Despite official assertions that the voluntary return documents are never signed under pressure, immigrant advocate representatives in various border areas indicated otherwise in interviews.

Jose Rodriguez, an attorney in El Paso, says he knows of at least two cases in which Mexican farm workers with potential legalization cases were directed to sign voluntary return forms despite their protestations that they planned to pursue valid amnesty claims. “There are a lot of people who ‘voluntarily’ departed in that fashion and then we never hear from them again,” said Rodriguez, who chairs the immigration task force of El Concilio de El Paso.

In San Diego County, which shares a 66-mile border with Mexico and hosts the nation’s largest Border Patrol contingent, critics cite two specific cases--those of Vidal Paiz and of Gabriel Soto, both illegal workers from Mexico. Despite alleged Border Patrol pressure, both men refused to sign the voluntary departure forms and instead entered deportation proceedings.

Paiz Arrested in April

In April, Border Patrol agents arrested Paiz on a street in nearby El Cajon, where he resides, and attempted to force him to sign a voluntary return document, according to Martinez, the Latino activist who is assisting Paiz prepare his amnesty application. Paiz, a native of the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, says he has lived continuously in the United States since 1978 and appears to have a strong amnesty case, Martinez said. Despite threats, Martinez said, Paiz refused to sign the voluntary return form--citing his intention to file for amnesty--and instead was sent to the immigration detention center in El Centro, where he was held for more than three months until being released on bond on Aug. 7.

“He (Paiz) kept telling the Border Patrol that he had never left the country, that he was applying for amnesty,” Martinez said. “They told him he was lying and that he had just entered the United States and that he lived in Tijuana.”

Veal, the Border Patrol official in San Diego, said that Paiz told the agents that he had extensive absences from the United States since 1982. Martinez said Paiz never made such a statement.

In the case of Soto, the Border Patrol and the illegal worker also provided conflicting versions. Veal said Soto told the arresting agents that he arrived in the United States in 1983--after the Jan. 1, 1982, cutoff date for amnesty. Soto said he maintained adamantly that he had been here much longer.

Work Card Issued

Soto, a 30-year-old father of three and a native of Tijuana, said he has resided in San Diego continuously since November, 1977. Earlier this month, Soto said the INS issued him a legal work authorization card, the first step of a successful amnesty application.

When asked why he sought amnesty, Soto replied: “I want my children to have the kind of opportunities, the education, that I never had.”

On the evening of June 15, Soto said, he was leaving his job as a janitor at a bank building in downtown San Diego when a U.S. Border Patrol van stopped him. Asked his citizenship, Soto said he informed the officers of his long-term residence in the United States and that he was planning to apply for amnesty. At that point, according to immigrant advocate groups, the agents should have attempted to verify Soto’s account, and, if it seemed truthful, should have issued a document giving him 30 days to submit his legalization application.

Instead, Soto said, the officers threatened him and attempted to force him to sign the voluntary departure form.

Said He Lied

“They told me that I was lying, that I lived in Tijuana,” Soto recalled. “They told me if I didn’t sign, I would have to spend five years in jail, that I would never see my family again . . . I told them I wouldn’t sign anything until I spoke to an attorney.”

Soto said he spent much of the rest of the night in the back of the Border Patrol van as the officers cruised about picking up other illegal aliens. Early next morning, he said, he was taken to an immigration cell in Chula Vista, where he was read his rights, including his right to legal representation.

Eventually, Soto was transported to an immigration detention facility in El Paso, where he spent three nights before his wife was able to post a $2,000 bond on June 19. Once released, penniless, in El Paso, his wife wired him $150 to fly home.

Although his amnesty application has received initial approval, Soto remains bitter about the experience--particularly since he has been unable to regain his job at a sausage factory, where he had earned $7.50 an hour--good money for an illegal worker. He has been rehired for his janitorial position, where he earns close to the minimum wage of $3.35 an hour.

“I lost a good job,” he said. “You just don’t find jobs like that too easily . . . If they had just believed what I was telling them, I would never have had this problem. I think this was an injustice.”