INS Chief Calls Arrests in Church ‘Regrettable’

The arrest of seven suspected illegal aliens in an Orange church during a Roman Catholic Mass this week was “regrettable” but not improper, Harold Ezell, regional commissioner for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, said Wednesday.

“There are so many things that can be misread into this incident,” Ezell said. “I don’t want this incident to put us back two years, when we were beginning to build the trust of people who want to conform to the law, and I don’t want it to look like Gestapo-type tactics, because it’s not.”

On Tuesday, during a sweep in Orange, where hundreds of Latinos gather each day hoping to get picked up for day labor, a Border Patrol agent pursued two fleeing men into La Purisima Catholic Church. The two men sat in a pew alongside several other men who were seeking refuge during the sweep outside, and the agent wound up arresting seven of them, according to authorities and reports from witnesses.

‘Policy Has Not Changed’

“It’s regrettable that the situation happened the way it did, but the agent involved did what he or any other law enforcement agent should do if anyone is running from them,” Ezell said. “Our policy has not changed. We’re not going to churches and kicking down doors looking for illegal aliens. . . . But I am not going to say to our agents that if someone runs to any particular building, with a cross on it or not, that it’s ‘olly olly ox in free.’ ”

Ezell said the Border Patrol agent who made the arrest--himself a Latino and a member of the Catholic Church--was unaware that a Mass was in progress.

Diocese of Orange Bishop Norman F. McFarland, who Tuesday called the Border Patrol’s action “stupid and irresponsible,” said he coincidentally ran into Ezell later that night at the Irvine Hilton and briefly discussed the matter.

McFarland said he did not ask Ezell for an apology, nor did the INS official offer one.

“He said, in effect, that the INS is not about to be making raids on churches, that there were some kind of special circumstances in this case,” McFarland said. “My whole approach to this is, there was a lack of discretion, a lack of judgment, but they better not do it again. Mistakes are mistakes, but if they’re repeated, then one has to question the motives.”

Condemned, Supported

McFarland said he received several calls about the incident Wednesday, some condemning the Border Patrol’s behavior but others supporting it.

“I have one message here from someone saying that you should not be able to avoid the law by going into churches,” the bishop said. “We know that sanctuary doesn’t exist, de facto. . . . However, the broad concept of sanctuary is an outreach to people who are in trouble. If they’re in need of food or shelter, we’re not going to ask them to show their green card.”