INS Urged to Abandon Move of Asylum Office

The Los Angeles City Council voted Wednesday to ask the Immigration and Naturalization Service to scuttle a plan to move its political asylum office from Los Angeles to Anaheim. Federal immigration officials want to relocate the office to help consolidate INS asylum operations, which are split between Los Angeles and Laguna Niguel in Orange County.

But Councilman Mike Hernandez, who brought the motion protesting the move, said many of the 40,000 asylum cases pending in Southern California involve people who do not own cars and depend on attorneys and legal aid organizations in downtown Los Angeles. Hernandez said refugees seeking asylum would be best served by INS offices located in the communities where they live.

“We’re talking about people seeking political asylum in the United States,” Hernandez said. “What the INS wants to do sounds a little un-American to me.”