Border Panel Debates How to Police the Agents : Immigration: New citizens group weighs history of INS abuses against federal promises of reform.

In its first meeting at the U.S.-Mexico border, the new citizens advisory panel of the Immigration and Naturalization Service took on a thorny problem Wednesday: how to police the federal immigration agencies that police the border.

The panel, which began three days of hearings in San Diego, was created to improve oversight of the immigration service and U.S. Border Patrol, whose problems of abuse, corruption and mismanagement are well documented. The agency has had a host of critics, from activists to high-ranking Justice Department officials and Mexican diplomats.

The Clinton Administration asserts that it is reforming the INS with historic budget increases and an overhaul of flawed procedures for hiring, discipline and internal investigations.

On Wednesday, federal officials presented a list of new initiatives, including the expansion of an internal watchdog unit, a computerized system for tracking complaints against officers, a bilingual complaint form and a faster process for internal probes. Some investigations have dragged on for as long as three years--allowing rogue agents to evade punishment and prolonging the ordeals of the wrongly accused.

For a Justice Department determined to look both tough and sensitive on the politically vital immigration issue, the centerpiece of the reform campaign may be the citizens advisory panel itself.

“We hope to make changes so the organization is going to have a culture of professionalism, “ said panel member Jose Moreno, a lawyer who directs an immigrant services agency for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of El Paso.

The nine-member, multiethnic group, launched in April, spans the ideological spectrum: law enforcement executives, immigrant advocates, civil rights lawyers and border community leaders. The Mexican consul of El Paso is a non-voting member.

INS Commissioner Doris Meissner said violence and allegations of abuse at the border have declined as “we are getting the staff we need, the technology we need. At the same time, we realize that we operate in communities along the border, and we want to engage in a dialogue with the communities.”

As part of that dialogue, activists from the border region told panelists Wednesday that blue-collar illegal immigrants and U.S.-born business executives alike have been mistreated by Border Patrol agents and immigration inspectors. When the victims complain, they run up against a bureaucracy that can be cumbersome, unresponsive and even menacing, activists testified.

Presenting a dozen cases of alleged abuse in Texas, Suzan Kern of the El Paso Border Rights Coalition described complainants who claimed they were threatened or ignored by immigration officers. A confidential source “close to the Border Patrol” has told her group about allegations that Border Patrol agents in El Paso are clandestinely planting booby traps along the international line, Kern testified. The source now fears for his life, Kern said.

Jonathon Jones, an immigrant advocate from South Texas, summed up the sentiments this way: “Local INS and Border Patrol believe that people who file complaints are not to be believed. . . . The immigrant is considered to be an enemy. A threat to national security, in some cases.”

The panelists responded with questions. Noting the frequent use of the term “widespread abuse,” Stanford law professor Bill Ong Hing and other panelists asked reform advocates if they could quantify the phenomenon in relation to the million-plus arrests made each year at the border--an often ambiguous world in which reliable statistics are hard to come by.

In general, federal officials appear to agree that problems persist, but disagree on the scope. Assistant U.S. Atty. Amalia Meza, chief of a special prosecutions unit created a year ago to handle civil rights cases in San Diego, acknowledged that a fierce code of silence among officers remains an obstacle to her work.

“There is no question that it is still there and it’s been there all along,” Meza said in an interview. “At the training programs, we tell them that if they obstruct an investigation, that is a criminal offense. If they commit perjury, that is a criminal offense.”

In a classic code-of-silence case, five Border Patrol agents from the Chula Vista station are being investigated in connection with the alleged harassment of a fellow agent who told investigators about an incident in which a co-worker hit a suspect on the head with a rock. After a campaign of intimidation in which the agent’s vehicle was vandalized and he received threatening messages, he had to be transferred, INS officials said. A decision on whether to punish the agents is imminent, a Border Patrol commander said.

Authorities take exception to the charge that no progress has been made, however. The U.S. attorney’s office in San Diego went as far as writing a detailed response to a recent report on alleged Border Patrol brutality by Human Rights Watch, the international watchdog group.

Three federal officers were prosecuted on civil rights charges last year in San Diego, compared to two in the past five years, according to the response. In addition, a backlog of 65 cases has been cleared and new precautions have been implemented.

Despite the combined efforts of the FBI and other Justice Department investigators, according to prosecutors, some of the incidents denounced by Human Rights Watch appear unsubstantiated or too sketchy to pursue. “I think [the human rights report] was very one-sided,” Meza said.

After the hearings, the panel will make recommendations to Atty. Gen. Janet Reno. Potentially the most delicate topic on the agenda: a longtime proposal by critics of the INS to create a separate civilian oversight board for the service, complete with investigatory powers. Such a board would be unprecedented in federal law enforcement.

“Commissioner Meissner has created an atmosphere in which she is willing to entertain a freewheeling dialogue on this,” said panelist Carol Hallstrom, a San Diego attorney.

Many in law enforcement oppose the idea, saying it would lead to persecution of agents and add yet another layer to the multiple agencies that monitor the INS.