INS Settles in Boy’s Mistaken Deportation

More than five years after he was improperly deported from the United States by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, a Texas resident has settled his federal court case against the agency for $110,000, an amount sources say is the largest INS settlement ever paid in a personal injury lawsuit.

Fourteen-year-old Mario Moreno Lopez had just arrived in Santa Ana from Texas when he was arrested at a day labor pickup spot and deported to Tijuana in February, 1984, in a case that attracted widespread attention and precipitated a major controversy between INS officials and immigrant rights groups.

“I hope this settlement sends a message to INS agents around the country that children have rights too,” said Moreno’s attorney, Peter Schey, director of the National Center for Immigrants Rights in Los Angeles. “Immigrant kids shouldn’t be treated as cattle.”

Settlement Called Significant

Charles Wheeler, an attorney with the National Immigration Law Center in Los Angeles, said the settlement is significant: “INS usually doesn’t settle these cases for that kind of money.” INS officials declined to comment on the settlement.

Immediately after he was picked up at 7:30 a.m. on Feb. 15, 1984, Moreno protested to INS officials that he was a legal resident and simply was not carrying his papers because his father feared he would lose them. Moreno had been granted permanent resident alien status in 1981.

The youth attempted to re-enter the United States a day after his deportation, was caught and sent back to Mexico. Six days after his first arrest, he made his way into San Diego and was reunited with his family.

He told San Diego police through an interpreter that he had attempted to explain his legal status to immigration officials after he was first arrested. But he said the officials “wouldn’t hear it” and “shoved” him into a van with about 40 other men who had been rounded up.

When Moreno was brought to INS headquarters in Los Angeles, he at first refused to sign a voluntary departure agreement. But during an interrogation, Moreno said in an interview after returning to the United States, he saw an immigration officer grab an adult Mexican alien who was pushed hard against a wall. The man had refused to sign a paper waiving his rights to a deportation hearing, Moreno said.

The incident prompted Moreno to change his mind because he “didn’t want to be beaten too.”

Mistake Admitted

The INS admitted five days after Moreno was first deported that agency officials had made a mistake. Additionally, Joe Thomas, INS associate regional commissioner for investigations, said that because Moreno was a minor, he should not have been deported until someone at the Mexican Consulate in Los Angeles made certain he wanted to return to Mexico.

The INS launched an internal investigation into whether Moreno’s civil rights were violated but the agents involved were exonerated. (The INS agent primarily responsible for Moreno’s arrest, Douglas Calvert, has been promoted and is working in the agency’s central office in Washington, officials at the INS regional office in Laguna Niguel said.)

In fact, Ernest Gustafson, the INS’ Los Angeles district director, held a press conference and said Moreno had lied. “At no time did the boy ever claim to be a legal resident,” Gustafson said. “The boy . . . led us to believe he was an illegal alien.”

Moreno’s lawyers, Schey and William Blum, filed an administrative complaint against the INS.

When the INS did not respond after nearly three years, the lawyers filed a $1-million civil suit against the agency in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. The suit, filed under the Federal Tort Claims Act, asserted that the government had intentionally inflicted mental distress on Moreno, falsely arrested and imprisoned him, negligently inflicted emotional distress on his father, Juan Moreno, and committed other law violations.

U.S. District Judge Terry A. Hatter approved the settlement this week. As part of the settlement, the INS is being required to destroy documents in which agency officials called for a criminal investigation of Schey.

The amount of the settlement is officially under seal and Schey said he could not divulge it. However, other knowledgeable sources said the amount was $110,000, $82,500 of which will go to the Morenos. The remaining $27,500 will be paid to his attorneys.

“I’m grateful for the American courts, without which INS would not have settled this case,” said Mario Moreno, now 19 and living in San Antonio, where he does construction work with his father. “The INS treated me like a dog. I hope this settlement will make the INS more careful before throwing minors out of the country without first checking with parents about their status.”

Shortly after Moreno’s deportation, Hatter ordered a temporary halt to the deportation of foreign juveniles traveling without guardians. A few days later, another Los Angeles federal district judge, Edward Rafeedie, lifted the order.

But in October, 1985, Rafeedie ordered INS officials to permit access to a telephone to children apprehended for being in this country illegally. He also ordered the agency to provide a statement of legal rights to minors in language that is easily understood.