INS Sweeps Extended to John Wayne Airport

Federal immigration agents, reacting to a resurgence in smuggling of illegal aliens aboard continental airline flights, said Wednesday that they are extending their sweeps from Los Angeles International Airport to Orange County’s John Wayne Airport and other suburban terminals across the Southland.

As new arrests bolstered evidence that smugglers were stepping up their transcontinental shuttle system for undocumented workers, U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service officials said they plan to converge on John Wayne Airport as well as airports in Ontario, Long Beach and Burbank.

Smugglers had been using inexpensive red-eye flights at Los Angeles International Airport to take undocumented workers to northeastern cities where they were in great demand for jobs. It was not clear Wednesday, however, why smuggling operations may have shifted to John Wayne Airport, which has an 11 p.m. curfew on incoming and outgoing flights.

Early Wednesday morning, INS agents arrested 43 illegal aliens as they tried to board red-eye flights at LAX. And at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, agents boarded a New York-bound flight on a stopover from Los Angeles, arresting 29 undocumented aliens.

“I don’t know what (the smugglers’) plans are now,” said Thomas Gaines, assistant district director of the agency’s regional anti-smuggling branch. “But our plans are to ensure that all our airports are not free ports for illegal aliens.”

The INS arrested 558 undocumented immigrants in a series of raids at local airports in late February and March. Organized smuggling activities fell off after the raids, INS officials said, and smugglers were forced to take clients east by automobile.

Immigration officials said they were tipped off in recent weeks that smugglers were again using the inexpensive flights. That information resulted in two raids earlier this month in which 64 people were arrested, Gaines said.

Thirty-three aliens from Mexico, eight from El Salvador and one each from Guatemala and Indonesia were arrested Wednesday in Los Angeles. Among them were two young boys who were accompanying relatives, Gaines said.

Some of the aliens were being held for deportation hearings, INS officials said. Others were given the option of voluntarily returning to their countries or, if they have families in the United States, allowed to leave on personal-recognizance bond while they await a hearing.

Chief Agent Edwin Earl said those arrested in Detroit were from Guatemala, El Salvador, Peru, Mexico and the Dominican Republic. They ranged in age from a 17-year-old to aliens in their 50s. It was the second straight day that INS agents arrested suspected illegal aliens at the Detroit airport. On Monday, 31 people--including 26 from Mexico--were arrested. Earl said that 148 illegal aliens have been arrested at the Detroit terminal since June 15.

Gaines and other immigration officials say the smuggling operations follow a familiar scenario. Paying smugglers up to $4,000 for the trip east, illegal aliens cross the U.S.--Mexican border at Tijuana, then travel to Los Angeles and other suburban airports, where they depart to northeastern cities to find low-paying jobs.

“Many of the smuggling operations are taking place at midnight because of the low fares,” Gaines said. “So we will go after this until the bubble bursts somewhere else.”

Bob Gibbons, a Northwest spokesman, said it is virtually impossible to tell whether a passenger on a domestic flight is an illegal alien because airlines do not require passengers to present passports before purchasing tickets.

Gibbons said that after the INS crackdown, Northwest found that smugglers may be charging illegal immigrants exorbitant prices for “what may be fraudulent and stolen tickets.”