County OKs Repatriation for Young Offenders

Undocumented Mexican youths who commit minor crimes in Los Angeles County can be shipped back to their native country for punishment, the Board of Supervisors decided Tuesday.

Under the Border Youth Project approved by the board, youngsters have a choice of facing prosecution in Los Angeles or being sent to Tijuana, where Mexican juvenile authorities will deal with them. Without comment, the supervisors unanimously authorized a $117,000 contract with Community Services Resource Corp. to run the program.

The voluntary program is similar to a mandatory one in San Diego County that has been criticized for exposing young offenders to stiffer sentences and harsher jail conditions than they would receive in the United States.

Currently, Los Angeles County turns Mexican youths who commit minor offenses, such as petty theft and drug possession, over to U.S. immigration authorities, who drop the juveniles at the border. “In some cases, they beat the INS bus” back to Los Angeles, said Bill Gerth, director of intake and detention for the county Probation Department.

Under the new program, Mexican authorities will interview youths under 18 in Los Angeles before they are transported to a detention facility in Tijuana.

“We aren’t just dumping them at the border,” Gerth said. “These people will do a lot of the things for the kids that we would have done.”

Undocumented immigrants accused of serious crimes, such as armed robbery or selling drugs, are not eligible for the program. They will remain behind bars in the United States and will be deported once they complete their sentence.

The program is designed to reduce crime while saving the county an estimated $500,000 to $1 million a year that is spent to house, cloth and feed the juveniles, Gerth said.

County officials hope to begin the program next week by turning over to Mexican authorities a 12-year-old boy from Guadalajara who was picked up for loitering.

Mexican authorities plan to return the boy to his family, Gerth said, adding, “The kid says he wants to go home to mommy.”

In San Diego, 189 young offenders have been returned to their native country since the program began in mid-1987, said Raul Valderrama, who oversees the project for that county’s Probation Department. Of those, only 16 have been rearrested in San Diego County, he added.

The San Diego program has been the subject of a lawsuit filed by an attorney who represented a Mexican boy returned to his native country. The attorney, Stephen Temko, contends the program is in conflict with the U.S. Constitution, notably by depriving youths of due process, subjecting them to cruel and unusual punishment and circumventing the federal authority for immigration law and international treaties.

A state appellate court in a 2-1 decision last year upheld the legality of the project. But dissenting Justice Howard Weiner said he was troubled by the fact that young offenders are convicted in San Diego County while Mexican jurisdictions are free to ignore the sentence and mete out their own penalty.

Temko, who has challenged the San Diego program, said Tuesday that he has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case.

Los Angeles County officials say the new program will be offered to Mexican youths before they go to trial, as well as to those already convicted and sentenced to county juvenile facilities.

Gerth said he toured the juvenile detention facility in Tijuana and found conditions there satisfactory. Los Angeles County authorities will review files to make sure the juveniles are treated fairly, he added.

Officials expect that about 10 youths each month will be returned to Mexico, the majority to be reunited with their families. In cases where the families are wealthy, the county contract calls for Mexican youths to make restitution to the victims of their crimes, Gerth said.