Overworked INS Office Lets Most Illegals Stay : Immigration: The Border Patrol deports ‘criminal aliens.’ Undocumented workers forced from jobs often remain here.

Overwhelmed by the task of ensuring that employers obey federal immigration laws, Border Patrol agents who watch over Ventura County say they routinely fail to deport illegal immigrants discovered in the workplace.

Unlike a raid last week where federal agents arrested and deported 52 workers employed by an Oxnard manufacturer, agents in the understaffed office in most cases simply pressure employers to fire undocumented workers, sending them back into the job market instead of back across the border.

“Technically they should not be able to find employment anywhere else,” said Michael Molloy, agent in charge of the five-man station in Camarillo that serves the county. “It’s a matter of resources, and I don’t have the resources to go into each and every business.”

A stingy federal budget has changed the way the tiny Border Patrol station does business.

In fiscal year 1991, agents netted nearly 3,000 illegal immigrants primarily by raiding public areas where they were known to gather. But last year, the Ventura County station lost the bus driver who shuttled deportees to the border.

Then, months later, they lost their bus to another station.

At the same time, changes in federal law legalized thousands of previously undocumented immigrants, making it more difficult for agents to conduct random immigration searches.

As a result, even with growing waves of illegal immigrants washing over the county, deportations dropped to an all-time low of 792 in fiscal year 1992.

“We’ve done nothing to keep pace with the problem,” Molloy said. “The new laws have opened up a lot of areas for these people to find employment, making our job very tough.”

The changes have forced the station to refocus its mission.

Molloy said its primary responsibility has become to capture and deport “criminal aliens,” undocumented immigrants who end up in the criminal justice system.

Lee Pliscou, directing attorney for the farm worker advocacy group California Rural Legal Assistance, said he believes the Border Patrol’s new mission addresses the most pressing illegal immigration issues.

“If we’re looking to identify those people who are part of the problem and not part of the solution, we are getting much closer to identifying those problem people by looking in the criminal justice system,” Pliscou said.

Pliscou said he has compassion for immigrants who leave their homes and families to cross into a foreign land so that they can earn a decent living.

“Most undocumented immigrants are not part of the problem,” he said. “The people who I represent, who are both documented and undocumented, are contributors to society and give way more than they or their families will ever take.”

In addition to scouring the jails for criminal aliens, agents have stepped up enforcement of laws that prohibit employers from hiring illegal immigrants. However, unlike past years, even when undocumented workers are located in the workplace, they are rarely deported.

Few of the more than 400 illegal immigrants discovered working at Ventura County businesses during the last fiscal year were deported, Molloy said.

So far this fiscal year, which runs Oct. 1 to Sept. 30, another 400 illegal immigrants have been removed from the work force but few were removed from the country.

“That’s a sad commentary,” said Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley), who has dedicated much of his political career to fighting illegal immigration. “There is an incredible manpower problem and illegal aliens understand it’s a game of numbers.”

With no funding boost in sight, Gallegly said the Border Patrol has been forced to make some hard decisions about how to enforce immigration law.

“Do we spend resources to move them back across the border? I say yes,” Gallegly said. “But Border Patrol is making some decisions about where they can be most effective, and they’ve decided that it’s better to take those jobs away rather than spend their time driving the bus.

“It sounds a little ridiculous but it’s a fact of life.”

The immigration sweep in Oxnard last week represented only the second time since 1986 that agents served a search warrant at a local business.

Before both sweeps, an inspection of employment records revealed that more than 70% of the company’s work force was made up of illegal immigrants.

Agents rely on the employer sanctions provision of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 to ensure that illegal immigrants removed from the work force don’t find other jobs.

The law provides for fines and even jail terms for employers who knowingly hire undocumented workers or who fail to properly record an employee’s eligibility to work in the United States.

But a glut of phony, easy-to-buy immigration documents used to prove work eligibility has undermined the law.

Gallegly, who represents all of Ventura County except most of Thousand Oaks, introduced six bills last month to curb illegal immigration, including one that would create a tamper-proof registration card that legal, non-citizens would use to apply for jobs, welfare or other government services.

The bills are similar to legislation Gallegly has sponsored before that failed to advance. They are likely to face opposition again, Gallegly said.

In a related issue, the Ventura County Board of Supervisors this week will consider a resolution urging the federal government to deliver the money it promised state and local governments in 1986 when the immigration reform bill was signed into law.

The county’s health and welfare systems have been unfairly burdened by the federal government’s failure to reimburse local agencies for the cost of assisting immigrants legalized under the new law, said Supervisor Susan K. Lacey.

She said assessment doesn’t even take into account the price of public assistance to illegal immigrants.

“All we’re asking is for them to send the money they said they would for taking care of the people they told us to take care of,” said Lacey, who estimated that state government is owed more than $300 million.

Money is at the root of the Border Patrol’s efforts to prevent employers from hiring undocumented workers.

In fiscal year 1991, the patrol’s busiest in terms of enforcing employer sanctions, agents fined six employers a total of $124,750 for hiring illegal immigrants or for bookkeeping errors.

Last fiscal year, eight businesses were fined a total of $64,200. The Border Patrol fined restaurants and manufacturers. Agents also tapped a car wash in Simi Valley, an auto shop in Thousand Oaks and a doctor in Oxnard.

Many of those fined never hired undocumented workers but failed to properly fill out immigration paperwork. Eight employers were found to have unknowingly hired illegal immigrants but were not fined.

Thousand Oaks businessman Anders Kampe was fined $6,600 after being busted for hiring two illegal immigrants from Sweden to work in his shop, which repairs Volvos and Saabs.

Kampe, a recent immigrant himself, said a competitor turned him in.

“It’s very hard to get skilled mechanics in this business,” Kampe said. “I was so stupid, I took the risk. I took a big chance, I was desperate.”

Kampe said his two mechanics were deported to Sweden. Now he is getting along with foreign and domestic help.

“Right now I have three Swedes, one guy from Iran and one American,” he said. “And the other guys have to help the American all the time.”